What to watch

Modest risk-off flows overnight after the US State department issued travel warnings/guidance to leave the likes of Belarus & Moldova overnight while there were also reports of photos of Russian troops in an "attack formation" circulating on social media.

• Riksbank Governor Ingves' speech at 15:30 will be watched as he discusses the economic situation and current monetary policy at SEB New York. Recall that he is the swing member of the Board and after the Board was split 3-3 last week on whether to not fully reinvest maturing bonds in Q2, as Governor he broke the deadlock. Ingves often speaks for the Board rather than giving his own personal opinion and it will be interesting to see what he says would sway his vote at the April meeting.
• Any Ukraine / Russia headlines are likely to drive risk sentiment while any comments from Fed, ECB or BOE members will be closely watched too.
• UK labour market data was encouraging and we have seen the SONIA strip open a little lower this morning, but given how much is priced in we find it hard to see the strip move too much further from here. The risk-reward ahead of inflation data due at 7:00GMT tomorrow seems to favour not being short, as there could be a bigger reaction to a missed CPI print.
• Pretty light on the data front today: US PPI the highlight following final print of Spain HICP data, German ZEW survey and second print of Eurozone Q4 GDP data.
• In terms of overnight central bank action: Kuroda reaffirmed the BoJ stance and noted recent JPY weakness hasn’t had much impact on import prices. There was nothing really new in the RBA minutes, there were some more details on reinvesting maturing bonds but nothing too technical.