Aurelia Butler

(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets.Tokyo markets will reopen on Tuesday after a long weekend with consumer price and spending data to take in early Tuesday and must decide what to make of the strong tech-led rally on Wall Street after Friday’s directionless trading.Later in the week the U.S. December CPI report could provide important signals for global investors. For a day at least Nikkei and JGB players will have to get cues from Japan’s December household spending and Tokyo Consumer Price Index.The Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.27% on Friday and is less than 1% below the 33-year high close from December. On Monday, South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI fell 0.40% and China’s blue-chip index fell to its lowest level in nearly five years, while Hong Kong stocks shed roughly 2%, amid rising geopolitical tensions before Taiwan’s elections on Saturday and weak confidence in Beijing’s economy.Things were looking up on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq and S&P 500 surged on the back of megacaps and chip stocks. The main negative was a slide in Boeing (NYSE:BA) which put pressure on the Dow. The U.S. ordered the temporary grounding of some 737 MAX 9 jets fitted with a panel that blew off an Alaska Air (NYSE:ALK) Group jet in midair on Friday. In potential share-moving news, Japan’s Sony (NYSE:SONY) is planning to scrap the merger of its Indian unit with Zee Entertainment, more than two years after the deal was announced, over a disagreement on who will lead the $10 billion entity, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.Dollar/yen fell in U.S. trade and was off 0.35%, with the dollar little changed against most currencies. Investors continued to digest mixed signals from Friday’s U.S. jobs and Service sector data, but focused more on Thursday’s important inflation reading as Federal Reserve policy makers ponder how soon they can pivot to cutting rates. The Bank of Japan is expected to be an outlier this year by lifting rates out of negative territory, though interest rates in the country are likely to remain below other major economies. Last week’s 7.6 magnitude earthquake could also hinder Japan’s economic recovery and goal to let inflation rise.“The earthquake aftermath can push back speculation of a BoJ policy tweak later this month,” John Briggs, Global Head of Economics & Markets Strategy at NatWest Markets noted in a report on Monday.Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets this week:- Tokyo CPI Tuesday (December)- Japan household spending Tuesday (December)Monday’s Morning Bid Asia incorrectly stated that Japan’s December household spending and Tokyo Consumer Price Index was due on Monday. The reports are scheduled for Tuesday. More

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to Boston on Wednesday in another trip to promote the benefits of the Biden Administration’s clean energy tax credits for the economy ahead of the start of the 2024 presidential nominating contests.Yellen will make remarks at Roxbury Community College’s Center for Smart Building Technology, where she will see a range of energy efficiency upgrades expected to save the school up to $800,000 on its energy bills, the Treasury said in a statement.She will be joined by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on the visit, which follows Yellen’s Nov. 30 trip to North Carolina to tour a lithium processing plant that is benefiting from tax subsidies approved in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.President Joe Biden has struggled to win voter confidence in his handling of the economy amid persistently high inflation over the past two years that has recently eased. Yellen said on Friday that if inflation continues to slow and wages grow for a sustained period, Americans will “feel good about their future prospects.”In her Boston remarks, Yellen “will discuss the Biden Administration’s efforts to lower energy bills and costs for families through the Inflation Reduction Act and prepare the clean energy workforce for good-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree in growing fields like home electrification and energy efficiency,” the Treasury said.She will highlight Roxbury Community College’s programs in residential and commercial building efficiency and building optimization and automation, it said. Many such energy upgrades are eligible for tax credits under the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed despite solid opposition by Republicans in Congress. More

ATLANTA, Georgia (Reuters) – Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic said on Monday that with inflation still above the central bank’s 2% target, his bias is for monetary policy to remain tight even though overall risks in the economy have become balanced between those posed by rising prices and those posed by slower employment growth.”I’ve got a natural bias to be tighter,” Bostic said in comments at a lunch event with the Rotary Club of Atlanta. “I want to make sure we are really, really there” in terms of returning inflation to the Fed’s 2% target before beginning to cut rates.His comments push against market expectations of rate cuts beginning as soon as March.Bostic repeated his earlier stated view that he does anticipate rate reductions later this year, with two quarter percentage point cuts likely needed by the end of 2024 and an initial one coming some time in the third quarter.But he also downplayed the risk of any imminent need to start lowering rates in order to nurse along an economy that still seems to have momentum of its own.Minutes of the Fed’s Dec. 12-13 meeting indicated some policymakers felt the central bank may be approaching a point where further progress on controlling the pace of price increases may only come at the expense of markedly higher unemployment.”I don’t think that’s where we are today,” Bostic said.But he also felt that “the risk of that possibility has definitely gone up,” and said he is trying to watch ever more closely for signs that the job market’s strength is eroding.”We have to be sensitive to the pace of change,” said Bostic, and he is focusing his conversations with business leaders on issues like whether any are planning layoffs.”We are not seeing that now,” he said. More

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s anti-money laundering agency is increasing its reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) to detect suspicious transactions, betting the use of the latest technology will help better fight financial crimes, a top official said.The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC) raised a few eyebrows last month when it fined the country’s two biggest banks – Royal Bank of Canada and CIBC – for a total of C$9 million ($6.7 million) for violations that included failing to submit suspicious transaction reports, setting a record for fines issued on individual banks.In comparison, the agency has collected C$23 million in penalties across most business sectors since it received the authority to do so in 2008. Canada has a reputation of being a law-abiding democracy; think tanks like C.D. Howe estimate between C$100 billion and C$130 billion is laundered annually in the country.FINTRAC’s Deputy Director for Supervision Donna Achimov told Reuters that AI is allowing humans who have the right mindset to analyze much more data than ever before and making it easier to detect more suspicious activity.The federal government has also added new powers relating to national security, helping FINTRAC staff up in recent years. Staffing levels increased about 28% in fiscal 2023 from two years ago. The additional resources will help the agency led by Sarah Paquet to work in real-time and mitigate money laundering and terrorist financing risks. Achimov said one way forward for FINTRAC is to use new technology to scour for suspicious transactions, or additionally to even partner with financial institutions to lower risks.Suspicious transactions for the 2022-2023 financial year reached 560,858 compared with 585,853 in the previous year and sharply higher than the 114,422 reported in 2015-2016.About 75% of all suspicious transactions between April and September 2023 were reported by financial institutions.The agency has also significantly increased the frequency of meetings to a quarterly occurrence with the larger banks and has held meetings with small and medium-sized banks regularly.FINTRAC’s increased scrutiny comes at a time when TD is facing a rare probe and a likely fine by the U.S. Department of Justice related to its AML practices, shortly after it called off its First Horizon (NYSE:FHN) acquisition.AML and legal experts said FINTRAC’s decision to name the banks instead of handling administrative penalties behind closed doors indicates an increase in enforcement activities in the future.”Everybody’s got to take a closer look … we got to make sure that we’ve got our i’s dotted, cross our t’s and we’re not letting that dirty money get into our institutions,” said Garry Clement, financial crime prevention expert and CEO of Clement Advisory Group. ($1 = 1.3351 Canadian dollars) More