Hedge funds retrench on risk, fearful of increased volatility

NEW YORK – Portfolio managers at hedge funds have retrenched from some of their riskier positions after a volatile week for markets.

A brutal selloff and recovery in global markets in the past week was triggered by the unwinding of billions of dollars worth of yen-funded trades and worries the US economy was heading to a recession. The CBOE Volatility Index ended at its highest close in nearly four years on Aug. 5.

The market rout has been painful for a number of hedge funds. Global macro quantitative funds posted losses between 1.5% and 2.5% between Aug. 1 and Aug. 5., while hedge funds focused on the technology sector were down between 2.5% and 3.5%, according to hedge fund research firm PivotalPath’s exposure model.

“We did see some degree of deleveraging,” said Edoardo Rulli, chief investment officer at UBS Hedge Fund Solutions, which invests in hedge funds. “Not panicking, but portfolio managers reducing positions.”

An unexpected spike in volatility is likely to suppress risk appetite until investors are more comfortable about global growth prospects, according to Sophia Drossos, economist and strategist at Point72 Asset Management.

“When you have a very long-term trade that starts to unwind very abruptly, it does hurt risk appetite. We’ll probably see an environment where investors remain reticent or skittish about taking on too much risk again,” she said. “It could be a headwind for the rest of the summer.” Drossos’ views do not necessarily reflect the hedge fund’s positioning, the fund said.

Leverage used by hedge funds to increase the size of trades is at a record high for the last decade, according to data provided by the Office of Financial Research’s Hedge Fund Monitor. Hedge funds registered in the US ended March with USD 2.3 trillion in borrowing from prime brokers, up roughly 63% from December 2019 and outpacing their assets’ growth.

There has been an unwinding of various positions in the last week.

Commodity-trading advisors (CTAs), or money managers that follow market trends, registered a “sharp unwind” of long equity positions, short yen, and short Japanese and 10-year German bonds starting after the weaker-than-anticipated US job data on Aug. 2, JPMorgan said in a note last week.

A Goldman Sachs’ prime brokerage note to clients also showed on Friday that long/short equity hedge funds have reduced their overall exposure to Japan to 4.8% last week from 5.6% the week before, while cutting overall portfolios’ leverage by almost a percentage point, to 188.2%.

US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and LSEG data released on Friday showed hedge funds’ position on the Japanese yen shrank to the smallest net short stance since February 2023 in the latest week, indicating investors have also wound down the yen carry trade.

MACRO CONCERNS

Front of mind now for portfolio managers – and contributing to portfolios’ de-risking – is the state of the US economy, as fears of a recession in the world’s largest economy mounted after the US unemployment rate jumped in July.

Rulli said macro hedge funds are also reconsidering some positions even though they made money during the market rout after being long US rates.

“Macro hedge funds still have conviction around the steepening of the yield curve, but they are taking some profits because obviously it’s done very well over the past four weeks, Rulli said.

Odds of the Federal Reserve cutting rates by 25 basis points or 50 basis points at its next meeting in September are close to the same, according to the CME FedWatch tool on Aug. 12.

“If there is a 50/50 chance between the Fed cutting 25 basis points and cutting 50 basis points, that is maximum uncertainty,” said Richard Lightburn, deputy chief investment officer at macro hedge fund MKP Capital Management. He has been considering potential adjustments in the portfolio to reflect the unknown environment.

“That’s telling you something – the market really doesn’t know what’s going to happen, and that means there’s going to be volatility,” he said.

(Reporting by Carolina Mandl in New York; Editing by Megan Davies and Andrea Ricci)

Oil prices jump on prospect of widening Middle East war shrinking supply

NEW YORK – Oil prices jumped by more than 3% on Monday, rising for a fifth consecutive session on expectations of a widening Middle Eastern conflict that could tighten global crude oil supplies.

Global benchmark Brent crude futures settled higher at USD 82.30 a barrel, gaining USD 2.64, or 3.3%. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled at USD 80.06 a barrel, up USD 3.22, or 4.2%. Brent saw its biggest percentage gain for a single trading session this year.

The US Defense Department said over the weekend that it will send a guided missile submarine to the Middle East as the region braces for possible attacks on Israel by Iran and allies.

“We’re piling assets one on top of the other and giving the impression that, if this turns hot, it could also turn ugly,” said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho in New York.

Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate for the assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr. An attack could widen the Middle Eastern conflict, while tightening access to global crude supplies and boosting prices.

Such an assault could lead the United States to place embargos on Iranian crude exports, potentially affecting 1.5 million barrels per day of supply, Yawger said.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued operations near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Monday following an airstrike over the weekend on a school compound that killed at least 90 people, according to the Gaza Civil Emergency Service. Israel said the death toll was inflated. Hamas cast doubt on its participation in new ceasefire talks on Sunday.

“The market is increasingly concerned about a region-wide conflict there,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York. A broadening war could lead Israel to target Iranian oil and hamper crude output from other significant producers in the area, including Iraq, Kilduff said.

Brent gained 3.7% last week while WTI rose 4.5%, buoyed by stronger-than-expected US jobs data that fed hopes for an interest-rate cut in the world’s biggest consumer of crude oil.

“Support is coming from last week’s better-than-expected US data, which eased fears of a US recession,” said IG markets analyst Tony Sycamore.

Three US central bankers said last week that inflation appeared to be cooling enough for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates as soon as next month.

Rate cuts tend to raise economic activity, which increases the use of energy sources such as oil.

Investors were looking ahead to US consumer price index data for July on Wednesday, which is expected to show month-on-month inflation ticked up to 0.2% after a minus-0.1% reading in June.

Oil prices drew support when consumer prices in China, the biggest global oil importer, rose faster than expected in July.

On Monday Russia evacuated civilians from parts of a second region next to Ukraine after Kyiv increased military activity near the border only days after its biggest incursion into sovereign Russian territory since the start of the war in 2022.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York and Robert Harvey and Paul Carsten in London, Colleen Howe in Beijing, and Florence Tan in Singapore; Additional reporting by Shariq Khan; Editing by David Gregorio, Rod Nickel, and Nick Zieminski)

S&P 500 ends up, but near flat for week after Monday’s steep selloff

NEW YORK – The S&P 500 ended higher on Friday and was little changed for the week after regaining almost all of its losses since Monday’s steep dive that was prompted by fears of a recession and unwinding of a global yen-funded carry trade.

The technology sector gave the index its biggest boost on Friday, and the Cboe Volatility Index, Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” fell after surging at the start of the week.

Monday’s big decline followed a sharp sell-off last week as a weaker-than-expected July jobs report sparked recession fears, and investors unwound currency carry trade positions involving the Japanese yen.

“Investors are trying to find evidence of a bottom,” said Robert Phipps, a director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin, Texas.

On Thursday, Federal Reserve policymakers expressed confidence that inflation was cooling enough to allow rate cuts ahead, and said they will take their cues on the size and timing of those cuts from the economic data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 51.05 points, or 0.13%, to 39,497.54, the S&P 500 gained 24.85 points, or 0.47%, to 5,344.16 and the Nasdaq Composite added 85.28 points, or 0.51%, to 16,745.30.

For the week, the S&P 500 was down 0.05%, the Dow was down 0.6% and the Nasdaq was down 0.2%.

“There is going to continue to be a significant amount of uncertainty and anxiety hanging over the market for the course of the next month until we get to the next Fed meeting,” said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.

The Fed is expected to cut rates at its next policy meeting on Sept. 17-18, but traders are weighing whether a 25 or 50 basis point reduction is more likely. Traders are currently pricing in a 51% probability of a 50 basis point cut, and 49% odds of a 25 basis point reduction, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.

Investors also await next week’s readings on US consumer prices and retail sales for July, which could provide fresh evidence on the chances of a soft landing for the American economy.

Even after recent selling, all three major indexes remain solidly higher for the year, with big gains early in 2024 driven by strong earnings in tech-related megacaps and optimism over artificial intelligence.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are now each up about 12% since Dec. 31, and the selloff has made tech stocks less expensive based on price-to-earnings ratios.

Among individual gainers Friday, videogame publisher Take-Two Interactive Software climbed 4.4% as it expects net bookings to grow in fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

Expedia also advanced 10.2% after the online travel agency beat analysts’ expectations for second-quarter profit.

Volume on US exchanges was 11.13 billion shares, compared with the 12.59 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.39-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.14-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 15 new 52-week highs and 3 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 52 new highs and 159 new lows.

(Additional reporting by Shubham Batra and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio)

Leveraged funds’ yen net short position shrinks on carry trade unwind

NEW YORK – Leveraged funds’ position on the Japanese yen shrank to the smallest net short stance since February 2023 in the latest week, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and LSEG data released on Friday showed.

The net position for leveraged funds – typically hedge funds and various types of money managers, including commodity trading advisors (CTAs) – was short by 24,158 contracts, compared with a net short position of about 70,000 contracts in the previous week, data as of Aug. 6 showed.

That’s the largest change in weekly net positioning in the yen by leveraged funds since March 2011, LSEG data showed.

“This week marked the culmination of the largest yen short squeeze in 17 years, with leveraged funds and other speculators unwinding bets against the currency at the fastest monthly pace since August 2007,” said Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist at payments company Corpay.

“To paraphrase Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until the yen punches them in the mouth,” he said, referring to the American boxer.

Global stock and bond markets, in particular Japan’s, were rocked this week by an unwinding of the hugely popular yen carry trade.

That trade, which involves borrowing yen at a low cost to invest in other currencies and assets offering higher yields, is being wrecked by Japan’s rate increases, a volatile yen, and imminent rate cuts in the United States and other economies.

The US dollar has fallen 9% against the yen over the past month.

(Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Editing by Rod Nickel)

Optimism rises, but China inflation looms

Asia is set for a positive end to a turbulent week on Friday after a rip-roaring US equity rally on Thursday, although Chinese inflation could temper any optimism if the data shows that the world’s second-largest economy is still in the clutches of deflation.

Wall Street’s resilience was notable given that US bond yields rose again after yet another poorly received Treasury auction, this time 30-year notes. That’s two sales this week that have drawn weak demand, with investors only taking down the paper in return for higher yields.

But the Nasdaq clocked its best day in six months and the S&P 500 its best day since November 2022. Broader indices in Asia and tech in particular should grab the baton and run with it on Friday.

The MSCI Asia ex-Japan index is currently down 1.6% on the week, China’s blue chip CSI300 index down 1.2%, the Hang Seng tech index down 0.6% and Japan’s Nikkei down 3%. Can they muster a rally strong enough on Friday to close the week in the green?

It would represent a remarkable turnaround, especially in Japan where currency- and rates-related volatility earlier in the week triggered some of the biggest stock market moves on record.

The US tech shakeout that began on July 11 is losing steam. The broad S&P Information Technology index and ‘FANGS’ index of Big Tech shares both fell around 20% in the three weeks to Aug. 5 but have rebounded as much as 9% from these lows.

US tech got a boost on Thursday from Meta Platforms’ earnings, and tech stocks in Asia could take their cue next week from Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC’s sales figures on Saturday.

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to Apple and Nvidia, on Saturday gives its latest monthly sales update. Sales have been falling in recent months – to TUSD 207.9 billion in June from TUSD 229.6 billion in May, which was down from TUSD 236 billion in April.

Indeed, Taiwan’s exports rose less than expected in July as weak demand from China offset record orders from the United States, which underscored the island’s essential role as a supply hub for the booming artificial intelligence (AI) industry.

Weak demand from China seems par for the course these days, and continues to keep inflation in check.

Figures on Friday are expected to show the annual rate of consumer inflation edged up in July to 0.3% from 0.2%, and the monthly rate climbed to 0.3% from -0.2%. The annual rate of producer deflation is expected to have accelerated slightly to -0.9% from -0.8%.

A positive surprise would be welcome – China’s economic data have been consistently undershooting expectations for months.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction to Asian markets on Friday:

– China inflation (July)

– Indonesia retail sales (June)

– Malaysia industrial production (June)

(Reporting by Jamie McGeever)

Nasdaq, S&P 500 end 2% higher in rally after US jobless data

NEW YORK – US stocks jumped on Thursday, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 each ending more than 2% higher after jobless claims fell more than expected in the latest week, soothing worries the labor market was weakening too quickly.

All the major S&P 500 sectors rose, led by gains in technology and communication services. Small-cap stocks also rallied, with the Russell 2000 index climbing 2.4%.

Among the S&P 500’s biggest gainers, shares of Eli Lilly jumped 9.5% after the drugmaker raised its annual profit forecast, and sales of its popular weight-loss drug Zepbound crossed USD 1 billion for the first time in a quarter.

Data showed the number of new applications last week for unemployment benefits fell more than expected.

“This was the data point for the week, so it took on added importance,” said Paul Nolte, senior wealth advisor and market strategist for Murphy & Sylvest in Elmhurst, Illinois.

“Our reading on this is the labor market continues to be OK… The recession fears at this point are probably a little overblown.”

Stocks had sold off sharply after last week’s July US jobs report sparked fears of a potential US recession. Traders also cited an unwinding of positions of carry trades, where investors borrow money from economies with low interest rates to fund their bets in high-yielding assets elsewhere.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 683.04 points, or 1.76%, to 39,446.49, the S&P 500 gained 119.81 points, or 2.30%, to 5,319.31 and the Nasdaq Composite added 464.22 points, or 2.87%, to 16,660.02.

The Cboe Volatility index, Wall Street’s fear gauge, was down on Thursday.

“Once volatility gets going, it takes a while for it to calm down,” said David Lundgren, chief market strategist and portfolio manager at Little Harbor Advisors in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

“The fact that we’re up a lot doesn’t necessarily mean the lows are in or that we’re going straight up from here,” he said. “But looking out three months, six months the tendency to experience above-average returns is very high.”

The second-quarter earnings season is winding down, but investors are watching the final results closely after some disappointments earlier in the reporting period.

Shares of Under Armour surged 19.2% after the sports apparel maker posted a surprise first-quarter profit, benefiting from its efforts to cut inventory and promotions.

Volume on US exchanges was 11.98 billion shares, compared with the 12.60 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 3.59-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.76-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 7 new 52-week highs and 4 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 32 new highs and 183 new lows.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Shubham Batra and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K, Shinjini Ganguli, Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, and David Gregorio)

US yields jump on better than expected jobs claims data

NEW YORK – US Treasury yields rose on Thursday after data showed jobless claims were lower than expected in the latest week, boosting confidence that the US economy is less likely to face an imminent recession.

Muted demand for a 30-year bond auction added to the move higher in yields, coming a day after a weak sale of 10-year notes.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 233,000 for the week ended Aug. 3, the largest drop in about 11 months. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 240,000 claims for the latest week.

“This is a very positive print for markets overall. It reinforces the fact that labor market momentum is not slowing to the same extent that was represented by the payroll report, and it also reinforces the absence of very significant layoffs in the economy,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, head of US rates strategy at TD Securities in New York.

Yields had tumbled after Friday’s employment report for July showed an unexpected increase in the unemployment rate, while jobs gains also came in below economists’ forecasts. Falling stock markets partly blamed by traders unwinding popular dollar/yen carry trades added to the demand for safe haven US debt.

But yields have rebounded as investors bet that the fears about the economy were overdone and on optimism that most of the unwind of the carry traders has been completed.

Thursday’s data may lead to further yield increases.

What the data “confirms is that we’re seeing the unemployment rate rise due to new entrants into the labor force rather than a very large amount of layoffs,” Goldberg said. “I suspect that in the absence of data to the contrary, we’ll continue to see the pricing for September rate cuts decline, and yields move higher across the curve.”

The odds of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by 50 basis points at its next policy meeting on Sept. 17-18 fell to 54%, from 69% on Wednesday, with a 25 basis point cut now seen as having a 46% probability, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.

Yields hit session highs after the Treasury Department saw a poor reception for a USD 25 billion sale of 30-year bonds. The bonds sold at a high yield of 4.314%, more than two basis points above where they had traded before the auction. Demand was 2.31 times the amount of debt on offer.

“People are becoming very defensive, just based on the run-up that we’ve had” to higher prices and lower yields, said Tom di Galoma, head of fixed income trading at Curvature Securities.

At the same time, “there’s been a tremendous amount of corporate supply this week – we had a heavy day yesterday and another heavy day today,” he said. “Corporations are taking advantage of the lower funding that they’re able to get just based on the rally that we’ve seen.”

Thursday’s auction followed a weak reception for a USD 42 billion sale of 10-year notes on Wednesday, where investors also appeared to balk at the lower yields following the recent bond rally.

The government saw solid demand for a USD 58 billion sale of three-year notes on Tuesday.

Yields on interest rate-sensitive two-year notes were last up 4.3 basis points at 4.0442%. They fell to 3.654% on Monday, the lowest since April 2023.

Benchmark 10-year note yields rose 3.4 basis points to 4.001%, after reaching 3.667% on Monday, the lowest since June 2023.

The yield curve between two- and 10-year Treasury notes flattened 3 basis points to minus 5 basis points. It reached 1.50 basis points on Monday, turning positive for the first time since July 2022.

The next major US economic release will be consumer price inflation for July on Aug. 14. Comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the Fed’s Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on Aug. 22-24 may also provide new clues on the path of rate cuts.

(Reporting by Karen Brettell: editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Gold rises more than 1% on safe-haven demand, Fed rate-cut optimism

Gold prices rose more than 1% on Thursday, supported by firm safe-haven demand and growing expectations for a sizeable interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve in September.

Spot gold rose 1.8% to USD 2,423.25 per ounce by 1758 GMT, snapping a five-session losing streak. US gold futures settled 1.3% higher at USD 2,463.3.

“What gold is benefiting from is just providing more stability and more investors are seeing that … it’s just migration from risk assets to more of a safe-haven asset,” said Alex Ebkarian, chief operating officer at Allegiance Gold.

“Gold’s outlook remains stronger, but we are experiencing more and more volatility, and depending on the impact of rate cuts, if the Fed comes out and does 1/2 percent rate cut, then we anticipate a lot more rallying in the metals market.”

On the geopolitical front, the killing of senior members of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah last week raised the possibility of retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel.

Bullion is considered a hedge against geopolitical and economic uncertainties and tends to thrive in a low-interest-rate environment.

Brokerages including J.P.Morgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo have forecast a 50-basis-point interest rate cut by the Fed in September after last week’s US jobs data.

Market sees a 72% chance of 50 basis points cut in September, up from 70% on Monday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, with an additional cut anticipated in December.

US data showed there were 233,000 initial jobless claims last week, below the 240,000 expected by economists and down from 250,000 the week before, easing worries of a slowdown in the world’s largest economy.

Gold prices fell as much as 3% on Monday, caught in a global sell-off driven by fears of a US recession.

Elsewhere, spot silver rose over 3.4% to USD 27.49 per ounce, platinum was up 1.4% at USD 932.75 and palladium gained 4.1% to USD 918.75.

(Reporting by Rahul Paswan in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Alan Barona)

Oil settles up for third straight day on US job data and Mideast tensions

HOUSTON – Oil prices settled higher on Thursday for the third consecutive session, after US jobs data eased demand concerns and war in the Middle East helped prices recover from an eight-month low on Monday.

Brent crude futures settled up 83 cents or 1.06% to USD 79.16 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude settled up 96 cents, or 1.28%, to USD 76.19.

Prices were buoyed after data showed the number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, suggesting fears the labor market is unraveling were overblown.

“The latest US data on jobless claims indicates still a growing US economy, reducing some of the oil demand concerns,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

Investors were also digesting a 3.7 million barrel drop in US crude inventories last week, reported by the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday, a drop which far exceeded analysts’ expectations and marked a sixth straight weekly decline to six-month lows. EIA/S

Elsewhere, the killing of senior members of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah last week had raised the possibility of retaliatory strikes by Iran against Israel, stoking concerns over oil supply from the world’s largest producing region.

“It will spike the price of crude oil if there is an Iranian retaliation on a large scale and I think that is what everyone is most worried about,” said Tim Snyder, chief economist at Matador Economics.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said on Thursday it had received a report of an incident 45 nautical miles south of Yemen’s Mokha.

Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since last November in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli forces stepped up airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 40 people, Palestinian medics said, in further battle with Hamas-led militants as Israel braced for potential wider war in the region.

Also lending some support, Libya’s National Oil Corp. declared force majeure at its Sharara oilfield from Tuesday, a statement said, adding that the company had gradually reduced the field’s production because of protests.

Analysts at Citi said there was a possibility of a bounce in prices to the low-to-mid USD 80s for Brent.

“Upside risks in the market remain, from still-tight balances through August, heightened geopolitical risks across North Africa and the Middle East, the possibility of weather-related disruptions through hurricane season, and light managed money positioning,” Citi said.

(Additional reporting by Georgina McCartney in Houston, Noah Browning, Arunima Kumar, and Robert Harvey in London, Arathy Somasekhar in Houston, Sudarshan Varadhan in Singapore, and Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Christina Fincher, David Holmes, and Diane Craft)

BOJ reassurance fades, defences still up

Asian assets are in for a rocky ride on Thursday after soothing words from the Bank of Japan’s deputy governor about recent yen volatility were overtaken by a negative turn in US markets, a reminder that market conditions remain challenging.

Wednesday’s US session saw the dollar, bond yields and stock market volatility rise and Wall Street fall. Amongst all, that was a weak USD 42 billion auction of 10-year Treasury bonds.

The auction was a big disappointment. Its ‘tail’ – how much higher the yield at sale was relative to where it traded before – was a massive 3 basis points, and demand was 2.32 times the amount of debt on offer, the weakest since December 2022.

Also, bear in mind that MSCI’s benchmark Asian and emerging market stock indexes chalked up strong gains on Wednesday of 1.8% and 1.9%, respectively, their best performance in two months. They may struggle to maintain much momentum on Thursday.

There is a decent sprinkling of regional event risk in Asia with Philippines GDP, Japanese current account, Taiwan trade numbers and a Reserve Bank of India policy decision all on tap.

The BOJ also releases the summary of opinions from its instantly historic July 30-31 policy meeting that some analysts say contributed to the current market turbulence.

Investors are still mulling BOJ Deputy Governor Shinichi Uchida’s remarks on Wednesday that the central bank won’t raise interest rates when financial markets are unstable, and that recent market turbulence is “clearly a downside risk to the economy.”

This helped lift the Nikkei and slammed the yen – in late US trading the currency was down 1.8% against the dollar for its biggest daily fall in 18 months.

Implied yen volatility eased a little on Wednesday but remains elevated across the curve. The wild gyrations of the last few days may have passed, but traders are understandably maintaining a cautious and defensive stance.

One-week volatility is notably higher than one-month volatility, an indication that investors still expect quite a bit of churn in the yen in the coming days.

India’s central bank is widely expected to hold rates steady at 6.50% for a ninth straight meeting, but investors are hoping for a more dovish tone that could open the door for an October rate cut.

At this juncture, an October cut seems unlikely. Current money market pricing attaches roughly a one-in-five chance of a cut in October and suggests a quarter-point rate cut is only fully priced by February next year.

Taiwan’s July trade figures, meanwhile, will be closely scrutinized for clues on the strength of AI-related demand for microchips. Exports in June soared 23.5% from a year earlier thanks to “strong business opportunities in new technology applications”, the finance ministry said then.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction to Asian markets on Thursday:

– India interest rate decision

– Taiwan trade (July)

– BOJ summary of opinions

(Reporting by Jamie McGeever)

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