Asian equities could trade with risk-on price action as global equities were firmer with the continuous cyclical tilt seen this week with fears of the new COVID variant easing significantly. The sentiment will gravitate towards yesterday’s positive announcement by Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX), where they said that three vaccine doses neutralize the Omicron variant. In contrast, a two-dose vaccine may still prevent severe disease but is less effective at neutralizing Omicron.
On the macro front, it is worth noting that the sell-off seen in the USD on Wall Street yesterday could favour Asian-Pacific risk assets. The US Dollar Index, DXY, fell beneath 96.00, which looks to be driven by strength in the Euro after recent weakness, while strength in the Yuan also weighed on the greenback. On the data front, traders will be watching the latest Chinese CPI and PPI after a reasonable intervention of Chinese authorities to bring down commodity prices. Whilst digesting the data, traders will be considering some effect of the new COVID variant in the global trade, the recent hit in the commodity prices and the recent dovish move by the PBoC, where it cut its RRR in order to boost the economy in the months ahead.
