Equity markets are broadly higher today, notably in Asia where strong rises in Japan and South Korea have brought regional indices to a new record high.

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1. Stock markets are looking broadly bullish as the new week gets underway, notably in Asia where the MSCI Asia equity index rose strongly to reach a new record high. Major components such as the Nikkei 225 (up by more than 3%) and the Korean KOSPI have also reached record highs. There are strong trends at work here, but analysts tend to attribute the latest boost to President Trump’s remarks on compromise with China over his proposed new tariff and increasing expectations that the pro-stimulus Takaichi will be elected as Japan’s next prime minister.
2. President Trump on China: “we can lower” tariffs but “they must do things for us too”. Trump’s new 100% tariff on imports from China is due to take effect just 11 days from now, but he is clearly signaling a willingness to make a deal, and markets are paying attention to that.
3. Precious metals fell on Friday, strongly enough in the cases of Silver and Palladium to hit the stop losses of many trend followers. Gold and Platinum remain in play, and all precious metals are enjoying a minor recovery as this week gets underway, but it is nothing significant yet.
4. In the Forex market, the New Zealand Dollar has been the strongest major currency since today’s Tokyo open, while the Japanese Yen has been the weakest. The USD/JPY currency pair is in some focus after triggering a long trade entry at most trend-following funds a few days ago. The Kiwi got a boost from higher-than-expected CPI (inflation) data released a few hours ago, which was expected to be 0.8% but was actually 1%, which makes further rate cuts less likely in the near term.
5. We are seeing a moderate recovery in Bitcoin, which reached a near 4-month low over the weekend at about $108,000. Bitcoin has gained in recent hours in line with improving risk-on sentiment, which has pushed the price up past $111,000.
6. There will be one potentially high-impact data releases today: UK GDP.

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