FOREX: Equity Sentiment Key to AUD Outperformance, JPY Under Pressure
- Renewed optimism surrounding the US government reopening have significantly boosted risk sentiment, prompting the US Dollar to consolidate last week's losses. Reactions across G10 do not surprise, with the boost to risk assets filtering through to the underperforming JPY, while supporting the likes of AUD, NZD and NOK.
- USDJPY rose sharply from the open and extended gains to a 154.25 high on Monday. The pair has once again met some resistance above the 154.00 handle, registering a seventh daily high between 154.14-154.48, bolstering the short-term significance of this resistance cluster. First important support to watch lies at 152.68, the 20-day EMA.
- AUD received further tailwinds from RBA Hauser comments being on the hawkish side. For AUDUSD (+0.70%), a break above key resistance at 0.6618 (Oct 29 high) would be required to reinstate a bullish theme.
- NOK meanwhile also benefits from an upside surprise to domestic October CPI. A December cut was already unlikely following last week's Norges Bank meeting and the prospects of that are likely to fall back even further. EURNOK has extended the pullback from 11.80, potentially forming a double top pattern multi-week.
- ZAR (+1%) outperforms in the emerging market space, very much a product of the precious metals rally (gold +2.5%, silver +4%), which adds further support to the positive risk backdrop, boosting higher beta currencies. Latin American currencies have followed suit, with all regional currencies rising Monday.
- Key to watch in the days ahead will be further developments on the shutdown, with a handful of legislative hurdles still to be met. UK labour market data takes focus Tuesday, while NZ inflation expectations and German ZEW also cross.
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US: Trump Oval Office Announcement Underway Shortly
US President Donald Trump is shortly due to deliver an announcement in the White House Oval Office. LIVESTREAM The announcement is expected to relate to drug pricing and could follow a similar template to a recent pledge from Pfizer.
- The announcement will be Trump's first press remarks since a market-moving Truth Social statement earlier today in which Trump suggested calling off a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and raising tariffs on China in response to new export controls from Beijing on rare earths. See earlier bullets here and here.
RATINGS: Moody's Completes Periodic Review Of Belgium, No Rating Action
No ratings actions for Belgium from Moody's, which is quoted in a press release on Bloomberg: "Moody's Ratings (Moody's) has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Belgium and other ratings that are associated with this issuer. The review was conducted through a rating committee held on 2 October 2025 in which we reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), and recent developments. This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future."
- There had been some speculation there could be a ratings action - MNI wrote Thursday: "* Moody's on Belgium (Current rating Aa3, Outlook Negative): We expect Moody's to maintain their current stance in the absence of 2026 budget details."
MACRO ANALYSIS: US Macro Week Ahead: No CPI, But Plenty Of Pre-Blackout FedSpeak
Below is the week’s data schedule, with MNI’s annotation of whether or not data will be postponed.
- As we went to press, the Fed announced that next week's Industrial Production data will be postponed (was due to be published next Friday Oct 17) as the data “incorporate a range of data from other government agencies, the publication of which has been delayed as a result of the federal government shutdown.”
- We won’t be getting September CPI as scheduled on Oct 15, but at least the BLS announced it will publish the data on Oct 24.
- As such next week we’ll be looking at some under-covered data points, including the Redbook weekly and Chicago Fed’s CARTS retail sales data (in lieu of the Census Bureau retail sales report), with a little more focus than usual on regional Fed manufacturing indices (NY, Philadelphia).
- Once again, the dearth of tier-one data leaves Fed commentary in focus ahead of the pre-FOMC blackout period: highlights for us are Philadelphia Fed President Paulson making her first comments on monetary policy on Monday since being appointed in the summer, while as always Chair Powell bears watching on Tuesday (we also hear from Bowman, Waller, Collins, Miran, Schmid, and Musalem).
- Additionally we get the latest Beige Book which was already key given the FOMC was already increasingly focused on anecdotal information as it attempts to navigate murky economic waters.
