EUR: EUR/USD - Challenging Top Of Range As The USD Breaks Down

At the Tokyo lunch break, JGB futures are stronger and near session highs, +10 compared to settlement levels.

• (Bloomberg) “Bonds face a volatile week as a slew of major central banks meet to consider whether interest-rate hikes are the best way to deal with the supply shocks caused by the US-Iran conflict. Investors are likely to initially send stocks up and crude down on hopes for a peace accord, setting markets up for fresh whiplash as the Mideast conflict looks likely to drag on.”
• BOJ is likely to weigh upside risks to inflation from higher crude oil prices against downside risks to growth from a deterioration in the terms of trade. This balance is likely to reinforce a cautious stance, keeping the policy rate unchanged at 0.75% at the March meeting while potentially delaying further normalisation.
• Cash US tsys are ~2bps richer in today's Asia-Pac session after Friday's mixed close.
• Cash JGBs have twist-steepened, with yields 2.5bps lower (7-year) to 2bps higher (40-year) across benchmarks.
• Swap rates are 1-3bps lower, with a steepening bias.

Source: Bloomberg Finance LP

The BoJ offers to buy a total of Y850bn of JGBs from the market:

• Y270bn worth of JGBs with 1-3 Years until maturity
• Y245bn worth of JGBs with 3-5 Years until maturity
• Y260bn worth of JGBs with 5-10 Years until maturity
• Y75bn worth of JGBs with 25+ Years until maturity

Bitcoin had a range over the weekend of $70,406.31 - $71,990.88, Asia is currently trading around $72450, +1.05%. The market continues to hold up pretty well considering the risk back drop, consolidating around the $70k area. It looks to be finally finding some consistent demand on a $60k handle as it continues to attempt to form a decent base from which to test the $75-$80k resistance. Technically it remains in a bear trend but a sustained break above the $75k-$80k area would potentially reverse that. I think we continue to do some work on a $70k handle first and suspect we will chop around between $60k-$80k for a while. A sustained break above $80k though and the Market can start thinking of a potential move higher again. Strategy has again been active adding to their already very large longs, so no sign of capitulation for now.

• Milk Road on X: “Strategy just bought $1.28B worth of $BTC in a single week. 17,994 coins. ~2,570 per day. STRC is the vehicle making this possible. Strategy raises capital from investors via their preferred stock offering, converts it to bitcoin, and repeats. It's a closed loop. No friction. No committee meetings. No waiting for board approval. They built a machine with one job: buy $BTC, don't stop.”
• “Total holdings: 738,731 $BTC. - Average cost: $75,862 per coin. - 3.5% of all supply that'll ever exist.”
• The above strategy works until it doesn't, the famous saying probably applies "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen." For now though Bitcoin continues to hold in there and these longs will be hoping for it to get back above the $80k area. Below $60k and the losses on that size of a position will mount catastrophically.
• Bitcoin’s Average True Range(ATR) for the last 10 Trading days: $2,285 

Fig 1: Bitcoin spot Daily Chart

Source: MNI - Market News/Bloomberg Finance L.P