In Japan, government bond prices fell slightly on early Monday trading due to concern over a reduction in tension over the EuroZone debt concerns. However, analysts are quick to remind that a continued lack of breakthrough in Greece’s debt swap deal has kept and will continue to keep many traders on hold. The Ten-year Japanese Governement Bond yield rose to a the greatest level this year as sharp falls in many euro zone nations debt yields since the turn of the year have forced traders to re-think the advantages of “risk-off” trades.
In early Monday trading, the GBP strengthened against all major currencies (except the AUD). The EUR and CHF both declined significantly.
“Now the market is looking to Greece. But it’s not as if the talks have broken down. It’s just that they don’t have a deal yet,” said Tadashi Matsukawa, a bond investment manager at PineBridge Investments. The EUR fell slightly against the USD on early Monday trading. Intially a late rally last week was overcome and became vulnerable to concern over the ongoing Greek discussion. Today, crucial meetings between European finance ministers should yield some firm decisions and positions on Greek debt restructuring including terms they’re prepared to accept for a second round of bailouts.
In Australia, the AUD continues to improve against he USD climbing to an 11-week, trading at $1.0509 against the USD. Traders appearing to prefer the high-yielding AUD together with it’s emerging stable and ethically sound Australian economy. This AUD movement assisted in pushing the USD index into negative positions at 80.190. “The AUD’s break above 1.0450 on Friday maintains the positive momentum since the middle of December,” said Besa Deda, chief economist at St. George Bank.
In Commodity trading markets, Crude oil have remained relatively unchanged in early trades. Light, sweet Crude opened trading USD98.39 a barrel during moving up a modest 0.06%. This coming after a previous weeks trades that saw it declined by as much as 0.9% to end the week trading at a five-week low of USD97.47 a barrel. GLobally, oil commodity traders are forced to continue tracking ongoing tensions between Iran and the West. This week an expected of EU foreign ministers focusing on continued and expanded sanctions is expected to include Iranian crude oil import bans.
