Stepen Innes daily insights

As it stands now, one race looks to be wrapped up in favour of the US Democratic candidate, with Warnock up 30k votes with about 5% of the vote remaining.

In the other race, Republican Purdue is narrowly up by 5k ballots, and the outstanding options mostly sit in Democratic stronghold counties. The best case for the Republicans tonight from here is a split result, and it will be extremely tight if it is – thus open to recount – but looking very likely to be a Democratic sweep.

The market reaction has been nothing short of anti-climactic to the Democratic lean in the vote count, but surely the market has not priced this result to perfection.

Still, risk appetite is struggling for direction this morning, reflecting a debate about how the policy debate (Stimulus vs Tax and Regulation) will play out as markets continue to foster a wider “risk-off” mood due to worldwide lockdown clampdowns.

Forex markets: Yuan’s sharp rally

The People’s Bank of China seems to be signalling that it would like to rein in the yuan’s sharp rally and discourage more gains. USDCNY was fixed at 6.4604 this morning, above Bloomberg, Reuters, and most banks forecasting model A few big Chinese banks sold yuan against the dollar, which looks highly likely to be window guidance by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC).

USDCNH is trading in a 6.4246-6.4476 range. USDCNY was fixed above expectations after a new measure overnight allowed Chinese companies to lend more offshore, and both have kept USDCNH supported.

This explains, at least in part, why the US dollar is not selling off aggressively today.

Stephen Innes, Chief Global Market Strategist at Axi