Remember what I said last night?
No? That’s ok, I wouldn’t either were it not for the unfortunate circumstances that forced me to give up Balvenie forever.
But for those who are still free to imbibe and thus perhaps prone to forgetting what was and wasn’t said on Saturday and Sunday evenings, here was our assessment of how market participants might attempt to pacify themselves by leaning on the “one-off” characterization of the Syria strikes:
The knee-jerk in USDJPY right out of the gate on Sunday evening probably says a little something about the extent to which it’s helpful to have a 48-hour shock absorber when it comes to helping markets cope with something like an escalation in an overseas conflict.
There’s a certain utility in waiting until markets are closed on a Friday evening to announce things that have the potential to spook traders.
Although the “one-time shot” characterization of the airstrikes on Assad’s chemical weapons facilities looks like it’s going to be welcomed by markets, there’s more to not like about this situation than there is to like, that’s for sure. For one thing, tensions between Moscow and the West flared further over the weekend, with the Kremlin decrying the attacks and watching as the U.N. Security Council rejected a Russian resolution that would have condemned the airstrikes.
Notably, UN Ambo Nikki Haley said Sunday that Mnuchin is all set to announce new sanctions tomorrow on Russia that “go directly to any sort of companies that were dealing with equipment” related to Assad’s chemical weapons. “Everyone is going to feel it at this point,” she warned.
Well, fast forward to the U.S. session and although the bounce in USDJPY was faded and although European equities are lower, there’s nothing to suggest that anyone is too worried about a further escalation in Syria or about any spillover from pain in Russian assets.
