MNI EUROPEAN OPEN:​​ Local Restrictions Deepen In China, N Korea Fires Another Missile

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• POWELL SAYS FED TO PREVENT ENTRENCHED HIGHER INFLATION (MNI)
• FED VICE CHAIRMAN RICHARD CLARIDA TO RESIGN (WSJ)
• CHINA SEEN KEEPING SPECIAL BOND QUOTA UNCHANGED FROM LAST YEAR (BBG)
• CHINA SEES UPTICK IN LOCALISED COVID RESTRICTIONS
• NORTH KOREA FIRES SECOND BALLISTIC MISSILE IN LESS THAN WEEK (BBG)

Fig. 1: USD/CNY 12-Month Forward Points

Source: MNI - Market News/Bloomberg

UK

CORONAVIRUS: Boris Johnson has piled pressure on his scientific advisers to cut the recommended Covid isolation period to five days as health chiefs admitted they had misread guidance from the United States when they opposed a change. The UK Health Security Agency has acknowledged it was wrong to claim that the US five-day isolation period started “some days” later than the British seven-day rule. Sajid Javid, the health secretary, is understood to be “frustrated” by the error. Several cabinet colleagues urged him to change the rules to ease absences in businesses and public services. He is open to the move if scientists conclude that it is safe but has yet to decide if he is willing to accept a bigger risk of spreading the disease. (The Times)

CORONAVIRUS: Health bosses were on Monday night accused of misleading ministers in an attempt to justify Covid rules which have crippled the country, with isolation now expected to be cut to five days. The UK Health Security Agency, run by Dame Jenny Harries, on Monday admitted it was wrong to claim England's isolation rules were effectively in line with other nations, including the United States. Its rationale had been repeatedly cited by ministers as they rebuffed calls to cut isolation from seven to five days in order to tackle major staffing crises across most sectors. (Telegraph)

POLITICS: Boris Johnson attended a “bring your own booze” event in the Downing Street garden less than an hour after a senior minister warned Britons that social gatherings were prohibited, according to witnesses. The event on May 20 2020, when England was subject to lockdown restrictions, was organised by the head of the prime minister’s private office and more than 100 staff in Number 10 were invited. Johnson’s own attendance at the event on May 20 2020, confirmed by multiple people and not denied by Downing Street, is expected to prompt fresh criticism of his leadership, which has been rocked by media reports of a series of allegedly illicit government parties. (FT)

BREXIT: The UK government must set out a timetable for how and when changes will be made to the Northern Ireland Protocol, the Democratic Unionist Party leader has said. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson was speaking after talks with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Monday. Earlier, he indicated he had paused a threat to pull DUP ministers from the Stormont Executive. Mary Lou McDonald said she was assured the protocol would stay. The Sinn Féin leader held separate talks with Ms Truss on Monday. In a statement after his meeting, Sir Jeffrey did not repeat threats over the future of the executive. Instead, he said he told the foreign secretary, the UK's new lead negotiator with the EU in post-Brexit talks, that the government must guarantee there will be no checks on goods travelling from Great Britain that will stay within Northern Ireland. (BBC)

EUROPE

POLITICS: European Parliament President David Sassoli died on Tuesday in hospital in Italy where he was admitted on Dec. 26, his spokesperson and office said. (RTRS)

FRANCE: The French government plans to announce by the end of the week additional measures to help offset a surge in energy prices, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday. Le Maire made the comments at a press conference held after a meeting with the European Union commission's vice president, Valdis Dombrovskis. (RTRS)

ITALY: Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the Italian government’s priority is to avoid closing schools and blamed those yet to get vaccinated against Covid-19 for the nation’s pandemic woes. “Most of the problems we have today stem from the fact that there are people who are not vaccinated,” Draghi said at a press conference in Rome on Monday. “It doesn’t make sense to close schools before everything else.” (BBG)

ITALY: The Italian government has not ruled out additional spending to help the COVID-hit economy, but new measures are not currently under consideration, Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Monday. "We have not reflected on whether we need additional budget spending," he told a news conference. In December, the government approved its 2022 budget which includes tax cuts and funds to lower utility bills. (RTRS)

ITALY: Italy’s interbank fund will enter exclusive talks with BPER Banca SpA to sell its controlling stake in troubled lender Banca Carige SpA. The fund decided to go ahead with BPER Banca at a meeting held on Monday, it said in a statement. BPER got a four-week exclusivity to complete due diligence and finalize the offer. (BBG)

ITALY/BTPS: Italy to sell max EU3.5B 7Y BTPs, max EU3.5B 3Y BTPs Jan. 1. Due to the recent issuance through a syndicate, bonds with a maturity longer than 10 years will not be issued, according to Treasury statement. (BBG)

U.S.

FED: MNI: Powell Says Fed To Prevent Entrenched Higher Inflation

• Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Monday said he stands ready to prevent elevated inflation from becoming entrenched. "The economy is expanding at its fastest pace in many years, and the labor market is strong," Powell said in testimony for delivery Tuesday at the Senate Banking Committee and released Monday by the Fed. "The economy has rapidly gained strength despite the ongoing pandemic, giving rise to persistent supply and demand imbalances and bottlenecks, and thus to elevated inflation" - on MNI MainWire and email now, for more details please contact sales@marketnews.com.

FED: JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said on Monday the economy is generating so much inflation that the Federal Reserve might have to raise short-term interest rates more than four times this year. Speaking to CNBC, Dimon said, "It's possible that inflation is worse than people think. I, personally, would be surprised if it's just four increases this year. Four would be very easy for the economy to absorb." (CNBC)

FED: Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida said he will resign from the central bank Friday. His resignation follows questions raised over financial transactions he conducted at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. (WSJ)

FED: Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted the following on Monday: "I'm glad Richard Clarida resigned after public outrage for his unethical actions, but many questions remain. American people & Congress need full transparency & accountability for potential illegal insider trading by @FederalReserve officials. I’ve urged @SECGov to investigate.” (MNI)

FED: White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Monday that U.S. President Joe Biden hopes to announce new nominations for top positions on the Federal Reserve Board soon. (RTRS)

FED: Michigan State University economics professor Lisa Cook was named a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in January, even as she is expected to be nominated any day now to the Federal Reserve Board by U.S. President Joe Biden. Cook is beginning her three-year term as the Chicago Fed's newest "class B" director, a spokesperson said. She is one of three such directors picked by the regional Fed bank's member banks, and one of eight on the board, the Fed website showed on Monday. Regional Fed banks typically announce their new boards in January, though the Chicago Fed has not made any announcement beyond updating its website. Cook is on leave this year from Michigan State and did not respond to a request for comment. Biden reportedly plans to nominate Cook to the Fed Board, where she would be its first Black woman governor, along with former Fed Governor Sarah Raskin and Davidson College's Philip Jefferson. (RTRS)

FISCAL: Treasury Department officials on Monday said that the Internal Revenue Service will face "enormous challenges" during this year's tax filing season, warning of delays to refunds and other taxpayer services. Typically, IRS officials enter filing season with an unaddressed backlog of roughly 1 million returns. This year, however, the IRS will enter the filing season facing "several times" that, Treasury officials said, although they declined to give a more precise estimate. The IRS website says that as of Dec. 23, 2021, it still had 6 million unprocessed individual returns, and as of the start of this month it still had more than 2 million unprocessed amended tax returns, a separate category. Treasury officials said the tax filing deadline for 2021 income is Monday, April 18. Treasury officials said there are no current plans to extend that deadline this year, urging taxpayers to file as early as possible. (The Washington Post)

CORONAVIRUS: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering updating its mask guidance to recommend that people opt for the highly protective N95 or KN95 masks worn by health-care personnel, if they can do so consistently, said an official close to the deliberations who was not authorized to speak publicly. With the highly transmissible omicron variant spurring record levels of infections and hospitalizations, experts have repeatedly urged the Biden administration to recommend the better-quality masks rather than cloth coverings to protect against an airborne virus, and to underscore the importance of masking. (Washington Post)

CORONAVIRUS: Chicago Public Schools are poised to reopen for students on Wednesday after the teachers’ union leadership voted to approve a deal with city officials to restart in-person classes in the nation’s third-largest school district. Schools have been closed since Jan. 5 after Chicago teachers voted to shift back to remote learning, demanding that the district put in place more stringent protections amid a Covid-19 surge driven by the omicron variant. On Monday, the House of Delegates voted to suspend the union’s remote action, and the members must now ratify the agreement. The district said classes are canceled Tuesday but that the district’s 330,000 students can return on Wednesday. (BBG)

CORONAVIRUS: New Jersey may have 8,000 Covid-related hospitalizations, nearing the state’s pandemic peak, in the third week of January, according to Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli. “We do believe we are going to have high levels for a couple of weeks,” Persichilli said Monday during a virus briefing. She said daily cases were expected to hit 20,000 to 30,000 through January. An earlier prediction, based on modeling, suggested as many as 9,000 hospitalizations by Jan. 14. New Jersey had more than 8,000 virus-infected inpatients in April 2020. (BBG)

POLITICS: Former President Donald Trump’s long delay in calling for an end to last year’s assault on the U.S. Capitol could be viewed as evidence that he agreed with the rioters’ actions, a federal judge suggested. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta asked why it shouldn’t be seen that way during a Monday hearing in Washington on Trump’s motion to dismiss three lawsuits alleging he conspired with other defendants to incite the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. (BBG)

POLITICS: U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday will begin an effort to weaken rules that allow a minority group of senators to kill proposed laws, arguing democracy is in peril unless new voting-rights legislation passes, the White House said. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday will speak in Atlanta, a city with a majority Black population and capital of the battleground state of Georgia, where Democrats won two crucial U.S. Senate seats in January 2021. Biden is expected to support changing filibuster rules that require 60 senators to back most legislation, including voting rights bills that do not have that many supporters. The specifics of Biden's plans were not clear. (RTRS)

OTHER

U.S./CHINA: China's sanctions against four members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom are another affront against universal rights, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday. "We remain undeterred by these actions" and stand in solidarity with commission members and staff, Blinken said in a statement. (RTRS)

CORONAVIRUS: Pfizer Inc. is developing a hybrid vaccine that combines its original shot with a formulation that shields against the highly transmissible omicron variant, the drug giant’s top executive said. While research continues, Pfizer will evaluate the new hybrid formulation against an omicron-specific shot, and determine which is best suited to move forward by March, Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference on Monday. Pfizer will be ready in March to approach U.S. regulators for clearance of the modified vaccine and bring it to market, and it has already begun production, Bourla said. (BBG)

BOJ: Nearly 80% of Japanese households expect inflation to accelerate a year from now, a quarterly central bank survey showed on Tuesday, up from 68.2% in the previous poll. The survey, which was conducted between Nov. 5 and Dec. 1, also showed 80.8% of households expect prices to rise five years from now. That compared with 78.1% in the previous survey in September. The survey is among data the Bank of Japan will likely analyse at next week's policy meeting to judge whether rising raw materials and fuel costs have affected public perceptions of future price moves. (RTRS)

BOJ: MNI INSIGHT: BOJ Sees 2% Price Target Nearer With Wages Key

• Bank of Japan officials see price gains reaching near 2% in the second quarter on higher energy costs and supply-chain disruptions with a fiscal stimulus kicking in and the output gap turning positive around mid-2022, and are looking at wages and costlier consumer goods to more pressure, MNI understands - on MNI Main Wire now, for more details please contact sales@marketnews.com.

JAPAN: Japan will extend its border measures until the end of February, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday, as virus cases surge after the country kept infections low for months. Spooked by the rapid spread of the omicron variant, the government in November reintroduced a ban on new entry by non-resident foreigners, initially for a one-month period. Kishida told national broadcaster NHK on Sunday that he would remain cautious, because the variant is not yet fully understood. (BBG)

JAPAN: Japan plans to expand the scope of COVID-19 inoculation to children under 12 years old at an early date to cope with another wave of infections amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday. The government will reopen mass inoculation centers run by the Self-Defense Forces to administer third shots to the elderly at a faster pace and begin the booster program for others in March, earlier than previously planned, Kishida told reporters. (Kyodo News)

AUSTRALIA: The health care system in Australia’s Victoria state is under “significant pressure” with at least 4,500 furloughed hospital workers and paramedics forced to isolate after contracting covid or deemed close contacts of a confirmed case, Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters Tuesday. The state recorded 37,994 new infections and 13 deaths on Tuesday, with 861 people requiring hospital care. Authorities expect new infections to peak by early February, with hospitalizations peaking a week or so afterwards. (BBG)

NEW ZEALAND: Fonterra cut its 2021-22 season milk collection forecast to 1,500m kg milk solids from 1,525m kg, saying varied weather and challenging growing conditions across many parts of the country earlier in the season saw actual milk collections down on the same time last year. “We were expecting conditions to improve over the Christmas-New Year period, but this has not eventuated. As a result, we have revised our 2021-22 forecast down 1.6%”: CEO Miles Hurrell. (BBG)

NORTH KOREA: North Korea fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile into the waters off its eastern coast for the second time in less than a week, ratcheting up tensions as Kim Jong Un ignored calls for a return to stalled nuclear talks. (BBG)

CANADA: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday advised against travel to Canada because of a rising number of COVID-19 cases. The CDC elevated its travel recommendation to "Level Four: Very High" for Canada, telling Americans they should avoid travel to its northern neighbour. The CDC currently lists about 80 destinations worldwide at Level Four. It also raised the island of Curaçao to Level Four on Monday. (CTV News)

TURKEY: Turkish companies will be able to open lira accounts that offer protection from currency depreciation, according to decree published in official gazette. Maturity of the accounts will be minimum 6 months for corporates. The measure was first introduced for individuals only in December in an effort to end spot demand for foreign exchange. (BBG)

MEXICO: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday announced he had contracted COVID-19 for a second time, saying he had a mild case and that he would keep working in isolation until he had recovered. (RTRS)

BRAZIL: Brazil Health Ministry recommends reducing quarantine in Covid-19 cases to at least 7 days if the patient no longer has symptoms. If symptoms persist on the 7th day, Health Ministry recommends a new test. If positive, patient must maintain isolation until the 10th day. Govt also said that it intends to deliver 13m Covid-19 tests in the next 15 days and at least 38m by the end of the month. Health Ministry also recommended that asymptomatic patients with a positive Covid-19 remain in isolation only for 5 days. (BBG)

BRAZIL: Brazil’s administrative reform is not doable in an election year, President Jair Bolsonaro said in an interview to Jovem Pan radio, noting that the government is now focused on measures to curb inflation. “Some measures have already been taken,” Bolsonaro said, adding he spoke to the Economy Minister, Paulo Guedes, and the head of Brazil’s central bank, Roberto Campos Neto, on what else can be done. President Bolsonaro also cited “some stress” with the economic team because of his veto to a debt renegotiation program targeting small and micro-sized companies known as Refis. (BBG)

RUSSIA: Russia and the United States gave no sign that they had narrowed their differences on Ukraine and wider European security in talks in Geneva on Monday, as Moscow repeated demands that Washington says it cannot accept. Russia has massed troops near Ukraine's border while demanding that the U.S.-led NATO alliance rule out admitting the former Soviet state or expanding further into what Moscow sees as its back yard. "Unfortunately we have a great disparity in our principled approaches to this. The U.S. and Russia in some ways have opposite views on what needs to be done," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters. Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said: "We were firm ... in pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters to the United States." (RTRS)

IMF: The International Monetary Fund said on Monday it has appointed French-born University of California-Berkeley economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas as the Fund's next chief economist, replacing Gita Gopinath, who is joining the IMF management team this month. (RTRS)

BONDS: Highly-rated borrowers around the globe kicked off the year with a record amount of issuance, suggesting they are looking to tap the market before interest rates move higher. Issuers including UBS Group AG and finance units of General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. sold $74 billion of U.S. currency debt from Jan. 1 to Jan. 10, the most ever for such a period, according to a Bloomberg high-grade bond league table that excludes notes sold exclusively to non-U.S. investors. The barrage comes as investors anticipate the Federal Reserve will tighten policy sooner than expected, sending yields higher. The U.S. central bank is expected to raise rates at least three times in 2022 to tame accelerating price pressures. (BBG)

METALS: The world’s metals traders are dealing with a shutdown at the industry’s most important exchange. A power outage at a third-party data center has caused connectivity issues, according to the London Metal Exchange. That’s cut off at least some traders from a venue that sets global prices for bellwether commodities from copper to aluminum. “We are looking into this as a matter of urgency, and are keeping market participants updated on progress,” a bourse spokesperson said. (BBG)

OIL: The Biden administration announced on Monday that it will reverse a Trump-era policy that opened up vast swathes of Arctic Alaska land to new oil development. (RTRS)

CHINA

FISCAL: China will quicken 102 major government projects announced and the use of CNY1.2 trillion local government special bonds issued in Q4 to counter the current slowdown, the Shanghai Securities News reported citing a State Council executive meeting on Monday. These measures may boost the infrastructure investment growth to more than 7% in Q1, with annual growth projected around 5% to adhere to strict controls of local debt, the newspaper said citing analysts. However, infrastructure investments will lend limited support to an economy and a quick rebound remains difficult, the newspaper said. (MNI)

MACRO: Major economies should strengthen cooperation to avoid negative spillover impact on each other as they unwind the ultra-loose monetary policies and fiscal stimulants in the post-pandemic era, the PBOC-run newspaper Financial News reported citing Xiao Yuanqi, vice chairman of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. Countries should also act to bring inflation back into an acceptable range, as it is likely to cause serious social unrest should the income growth fails to keep up with price gains, Xiao was cited as saying. (MNI)

FISCAL: China plans to keep its 2022 quota for new infrastructure debt unchanged from 2021, according to people familiar with the matter, as the government looks to balance debt sustainability with the need to support economic growth. Local governments were allowed to sell 3.65 trillion yuan ($573 billion) of new special bonds in 2021. The people with knowledge of the matter asked not to be named as they weren’t allowed to comment publicly. The quota still needs to be officially approved at the annual meeting of China’s parliament in March. (BBG)

BONDS: Foreign investors still favor Chinese yuan bonds even as the U.S. Federal Reserve accelerated tapering and potential rate hikes, as foreign holdings of yuan bonds rose CNY78 billion in December to total CNY3.68 trillion by the end of 2021, the 21st Century Business Herald reported citing data by China Central Depository & Clearing. The Fed’s tightening ahead of schedule may increase the volatility of the global financial market, which drives global investors to increase asset diversification with yuan bonds becoming their first choice for safe-haven investment due to its low correlation with the global financial market, the newspaper said. The appreciation of the yuan supported by China’s robust exports also attracted investors, the newspaper added. (MNI)

CREDIT: Another record year for debt defaults is expected in 2022, according to economists and credit traders, though most expect missed payments won’t bring broader pain to the country’s economy. Seven of the 13 respondents in a Bloomberg survey expect defaults to increase from last year’s level, driven by the ongoing debt crisis in China’s property sector. Three others each predicted little change in delinquencies for 2022 or a decline. Only two of those surveyed believe rising defaults may increase systemic risk in China. One of them, Daiwa Capital Markets Hong Kong Ltd. economist Kevin Lai, said home-price declines in late 2021 added to other real estate problems and mean banks are “exposed to default risks from developers, local governments and property owners.” (BBG)

CORONAVIRUS: China locked down a city of five million people a day after detecting omicron in the central Henan province, its second shut down in as many months, underscoring the nation’s commitment to eliminating Covid as two highly transmissible variants circulate. Authorities in the city of Anyang told residents not to leave their homes and banned use of all vehicles after two people were reported with the more contagious omicron variant on Monday. Another 58 cases were disclosed Tuesday morning, according to the local health authorities, though they didn’t say whether the infections were caused by omicron. China reported 110 locally transmitted Covid infections on Tuesday. Henan province is the latest epicenter, accounting for 87 of the new cases. All companies in Anyang were required to suspend operations, other than for essential activities, until the virus risk in the city is completely eliminated, officials said. Tickets sales for travel to Beijing were also halted. (BBG)

CORONAVIRUS: Northern Chinese city of Zhengzhou shuts down places that are non-essential to daily life and bans dining-in at restaurants, according to a government statement on a briefing Tuesday. City requires buses, subways to skip stations in locked-down areas and ask for health codes and negative nucleic acid test results from passengers. (BBG)

CORONAVIRUS: Tianjin city imposed lockdown in 2 towns in Xiqing district from Tuesday, the municipal government says, as coronavirus spread continued in the city after it reported the nation’s first community-spread omicron cases earlier this month. (BBG)

CORONAVIRUS: China doesn’t plan to adjust Olympics Covid measures amid local omicron cases unless there’s a large-scale outbreak in the bubble, virus control official of the Organizing Committee Huang Chun says at a briefing. (BBG)

PROPERTY: Low-cost homes will be built in 40 major Chinese cities to lease out, housing ministry official Pan Wei tells reporters at a press conference in Beijing Tuesday. The new homes for leasing will account for around 26% of total new housing supply during the 14th five-year plan period. Pan did not make clear who would pay for them to be built or who would own the properties, but said local governments should lower building costs with supportive policies and called on “various entities” to help this effort. (BBG)

PROPERTY: China's Shimao Group Holdings said on Tuesday it was in talks with potential parties and may consider selling some properties to reduce its debt, a day after reports said it had put all of its real estate projects on sale. The property developer, responding to the media reports, also said it had not entered any deal to sell Shanghai Shimao International Plaza, a commercial property in Shanghai, and that it had "no outstanding asset-backed securities due and payable" as of Tuesday. (RTRS)

OVERNIGHT DATA

JAPAN NOV, P LEADING INDEX 103.0; MEDIAN 102.9; OCT 101.5
JAPAN NOV, P COINCIDENT INDEX 93.6; MEDIAN 93.4; OCT 89.9

AUSTRALIA NOV RETAIL SALES +7.3% M/M; MEDIAN +3.6%; OCT +4.9%

AUSTRALIA ANZ ROY MORGAN WEEKLY CONSUMER CONFIDENCE 106.0; PREV. 108.4

Consumer confidence began the year on a downbeat note, with a decline of 2.2% compared to the pre-Christmas level. The rapid rise of Omicron cases across Australia is likely responsible for the dampened outlook in the first week of January. Confidence fell in all the major capitals, with Adelaide faring the worst. Over the decade from 2011 to 2020, consumer confidence has risen 2.6% on average in the first survey of January compared to the last prior to Christmas. So this result is even weaker than it seems. Consistent with the drop in confidence, ANZ-observed spending is at its lowest level since the Delta lockdowns. The good news is that people are still relatively happy about their own financial circumstances. This potentially sets things up for a rapid rebound once people are more confident about health outcomes. (ANZ)

AUSTRALIA NOV TRADE BALANCE +A$9.423BN; MEDIAN +A$10.550BN; OCT +A$10.781BN
AUSTRALIA NOV EXPORTS +2% M/M; OCT -3%
AUSTRALIA NOV IMPORTS +6% M/M; OCT -2%

SOUTH KOREA NOV BOP CURRENT ACCOUNT BALANCE +$7.1561BN; OCT +$6.9455BN
SOUTH KOREA NOV BOP GOODS BALANCE +$5.9514BN; OCT +$5.6376BN

UK DEC BRC SALES LIKE-FOR-LIKE +0.6% Y/Y; NOV +1.8%

CHINA MARKETS

PBOC INJECTS CNY10BN VIA OMOS, LIQUIDITY UNCHANGED

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) injected CNY10 billion via 7-day reverse repos with the rate unchanged at 2.2% on Tuesday. This keeps the liquidity unchanged after offsetting the maturity of CNY10 billion repos today, according to Wind Information.

• The operation aims to keep liquidity reasonable and ample, the PBOC said on its website.
• The 7-day weighted average interbank repo rate for depository institutions (DR007) rose to 2.2000% at 09:26 am local time from the close of 2.0471% on Monday.
• The CFETS-NEX money-market sentiment index closed at 46 on Monday vs 47 on Friday.

PBOC SETS YUAN CENTRAL PARITY AT 6.3684 TUES VS 6.3653

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the dollar-yuan central parity rate higher at 6.3684 on Tuesday, compared with 6.3653 set on Monday.

MARKETS

UP TODAY (Times GMT/Local)

Date	GMT/Local	Impact	Flag	Country	Event
11/01/2022	0800/0900	*		ES	Industrial Orders
11/01/2022	0900/1000	*		IT	Retail Sales
11/01/2022	1000/1000	**		UK	Gilt Outright Auction Result
11/01/2022	1020/1120			EU	ECB Lagarde At Bundesbank Ceremony
11/01/2022	1100/0600	**		US	NFIB Small Business Optimism Index
11/01/2022	1355/0855	**		US	Redbook Retail Sales Index
11/01/2022	1430/0930			US	Kansas City Fed's Esther George
11/01/2022	1500/1000	**		US	IBD/TIPP Optimism Index
11/01/2022	1500/1000			US	Fed Chair Powell's Senate Nomination Hearing
11/01/2022	1630/1130	**		US	NY Fed Weekly Economic Index
11/01/2022	1800/1300	***		US	US 3 Year Treasury Auction Result