Weekend attack on Iran
The big news over the weekend were the Iranian attacks on Israel. Bitcoin lost ground over the weekend but the impact on other financial markets was more subdued once they opened on Monday/Sunday evening (US time).
Oil had a choppy opening but has calmed down and is now little changed from its level late Friday. It's a similar story across a lot of the major USD/JPY forex bars. The USD/JPY pair rose to a new high in more than 30 years.
Prices of industrial metals such as aluminum and nickel rose. New US and British sanctions banned the delivery of any Russian supplies produced after midnight on Friday. Aluminum jumped more than 9%, its largest single move in more than 30 years.
From China today, the interest rate on the medium-term lending facility (MLF) was unchanged at 2.5% for this month. The People's Bank of China added 100 billion yuan, which does not fully compensate for the 170 billion yuan due on Wednesday of this week. The Chinese economy needs more stimulus, and while the People's Bank of China is reluctant to cut interest rates, fearing that wider price disparity will lead to further weakness for the yuan, it is a bit strange that they are bleeding money through the multilateral fund.
Stock market trading in mainland China rose during the day. Chinese authorities reworked key capital market policies late Friday. Also, state wealth fund Central Huijin increased its stakes in China's top four banks on Friday. As I update Bloomberg, private Chinese developers are reportedly facing a $553 billion financing gap to complete pre-sold homes according to Goldman Sachs analysts.
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