The Overnight News Roundup

Jan 15, 2025

PiQ and Zack Eiseman provide you with a consolidated roundup of the overnight news that matters most to markets.

Check out our new X account - PiQ Breaking News

Visit PiQ Suite

MACRO:

Yen saw strength after Governor Ueda said the BoJ will raise rates and adjust the degree of monetary support if improvements in the economy and price conditions continue. Said that a hike would be discussed and considered next week, citing positive wage hike talk. (RTRS)
Japanese manufacturers' sentiment recovered in January after a dip last month thanks to better conditions for materials industries, but their outlook remains flat due to uncertainty over proposed Trump policies, the Reuters Tankan poll found. (RTRS)
An ex-Japanese official, Tatsuo Yamasaki, said in Nikkei that Trump and Tokyo can cooperate to normalize the dollar-yen rate. (Nikkei)
Japan is likely to miss achieving its goal of running a primary budget surplus by the next fiscal year as the minority government faces increasing pressure for more spending. (RTRS)
Japan Finance Minister Kato reiterated that the government would take appropriate action against excessive movement on the foreign exchange market. (RTRS)
China’s central bank pumped a near-historic amount of short-term funds into its financial system on Wednesday, dialing up liquidity support amid a cash squeeze with the new year holiday looming. (BBG)
Chinese regulatory authorities will take multiple measures to jointly build a mechanism for stabilizing the stock market, China Securities Journal reported, citing strategists. (CSJ)
Investors have poured record amounts of money into the equal-weighted S&P 500 in the second half of 2024, according to data from Morningstar, as investors hedged themselves against the dominance of big tech. (FT)
Some bond traders are betting that the relentless selloff in Treasuries will soon lose momentum, in part because of questions around how President-elect Donald Trump’s policies will take shape. (BBG)
Trump announced that Keith Sonderling will serve as the next United States Deputy Secretary of Labor. (Truth Social)
Economists say the devastating fires in the Los Angeles area are likely to put modest pressure on the U.S. national economy in the near term but are unlikely to derail strong forward momentum. (RTRS)
The Pound saw two-way price action after UK CPI unexpectedly slowed to an annual rate of 2.5% in December from 2.6% in November, against expectations of an unchanged 2.6%. The core figure fell even further to 3.2% from 3.5%. (RTRS)
Gilt investors have told the UK’s Labour government that it may need to increase taxes further if it is to retain credibility with the bond market despite Chancellor Reeves' promises not to repeat October’s tax rises. (FT)
Two thirds of UK retailers will raise prices this year in response to higher employer social security costs introduced, a BRC survey showed. (RTRS)
ECB's Lane said Euro Zone inflation is set to decline this year on more muted wage increases but the outlook is far too uncertain for the ECB to provide an explicit guidance on rates. (RTRS)
Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei is slowing the monthly devaluation of the peso, doubling down on an unorthodox currency policy that he says is essential to ending the country’s inflation crisis. (FT)
Energy producers have rushed to lock in oil prices since the US announced its harshest sanctions yet on Russian energy trade on Friday, which sent oil prices surging to multi-month highs, market participants said. (RTRS)
More than 2 million WTI light sweet crude oil futures traded on both Friday and Monday, the first time volumes exceeded 2 million since February and March 2022, the CME group said. (RTRS)
FT has profiled the Chinese commodities market, highlighting that the super cycle is over and despite the latest government stimulus measures, the mood in the sector is still downbeat, although a future cycle could be spurred by the energy transition and infrastructure investment. (FT)
Saudi Aramco is to expand its investments in lithium production in the race to build a supply chain for the metal vital for batteries to power electric cars. (FT)

Visit PiQ Suite

GEOPOLITICAL:

The US plans to unveil more regulations aimed at keeping advanced chips made by TSMC and other producers such as Samsung and Intel from flowing to China, part of a flurry of measures introduced by the Biden administration during its final days. (BBG)
Iranian Vice President said Iran discovered Israel's planting of explosives inside centrifuges, according to a translation of an Al Arabiya post on X (Newsquawk)
Ukraine's national grid operator has introduced emergency power cuts in six regions amid a "massive" Russian missile strike.

EQUITIES:

Reports in Korean press suggest Nvidia's next-gen Rubin chip could launch in late 2024, earlier than anticipated, where SK Hynix plans to ship HBM4 samples to Nvidia as early as June. (ZDNet)
Taiwan suppliers of Nvidia GB200 servers and components responded to fresh reports of overheating issues on GB200 servers by saying, “How many times is this rumor going to get repeated?”, saying GB200 shipments are on schedule and have not been impacted. (UDN)
Elon Musk was sued by the SEC, which accused the world's richest person of waiting too long to disclose in 2022 he had amassed a large stake in Twitter. (RTRS)
Tencent and Guillemot family are weighing a deal for Ubisoft assets and the creation of a new JV. The Ubisoft deal would help Tencent's plans to expand outside China. (BBG)
Intel said it is planning to separate its global venture capital arm, Intel Capital, to turn it into a standalone investment fund. (WSJ)
Canada approved with conditions Bunge's $34 billion merger with Glencore-backed Viterra, clearing one of the final remaining obstacles for a global agriculture tie-up that is unprecedented in dollar value. (RTRS)
Exxon Mobil Corp. discovered natural gas off the coast of Egypt after successfully drilling an exploration well in the Mediterranean Sea. (BBG)
The cost of wildfires ravaging swaths of Los Angeles keeps rising, with new estimates of the total losses for the insurance industry now seen as high as $40 billion. (BBG)
Nippon Steel remains interested in working with the incoming administration of Trump to try to seal a takeover of U.S. Steel, its vice chairman Takahiro Mori said in an opinion piece. (WSJ)
In just five years and in the face of mounting U.S. restrictions, China's share of the global memory chip market has gone from virtually zero to 5%. Industry insiders say it could double this year alone in a challenge to global leaders Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron. (Nikkei)
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is expected to discuss CoWoS capacity expansion with a subsidiary of advanced chip packaging giant ASE Technology during his Jan 17th visit to Taiwan, according to local media. (CTEE)
Country Garden released its long-delayed results showing that the heavily indebted Chinese developer’s net loss narrowed in the first half of 2024 following a record loss of more than $24 billion in 2023. (WSJ)
Yuan bonds issued by China Vanke dropped on Wednesday, with a June 2027 bond quoted 19% lower at 66.9 yuan compared to its 100 yuan par value. (RTRS)