Market Brief, North America

Amid a quiet start to the week, the Japanese yen is finding modest support even after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s governing coalition lost its majority in the Upper House, suggesting that currency markets had largely priced in the outcome ahead of yesterday’s vote. The Liberal Democratic Party—dominant in Japanese politics for all but five of the past seventy years—shed 16 of the 66 seats it defended, as both new and established opposition parties capitalised on public frustration over surging living costs. Wages have lagged behind inflation since the pandemic, and rice prices—arguably as central to Japan’s inflation psychology as gasoline...

The dollar is resuming its upward climb and bond markets are stabilising after suffering a short-lived bout of extreme volatility early in yesterday’s session on speculation surrounding the potential firing of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Most major currencies are down between 1 and 1.5 percent against the greenback this week as the world’s most central currency enjoys a technical recovery against its peers. If yesterday was a test run to see how investors would take the early dismissal of Jerome Powell, it didn’t go particularly well. The dollar slumped, short-term Treasury yields tumbled, long-term yields soared, and equity indices...