Asian market Update:

Asian market Update: Markets remain nervous and U.S. futures are under pressure once again, alongside a broad sell off across Asian equity markets. Wall Street managed to close with gains, after a late rally erased earlier steep losses, but tensions over the Ukraine, virus developments in China and the prospect of reduced central bank support all continued to weigh on sentiment overnight. Australia's inflation rate came in higher than expected, which added to growing conviction that the RBA will end its quantitative easing program at the February 1 meeting. Singapore surprised with a move to tighten policy outside of a scheduled review - with more expected at the next regular meeting in Apri. In China meanwhile the rise in Omicron cases ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays and of course the Olympic Games is adding to nervousness over slowing growth, with the recent slew of rate cuts not preventing Hang Seng and CEI 200 to drop more than -1.8% today. the Nikkei closed with a loss of -1.7%, the ASX plunged -2.5% after the hot inflation report. Treasury yields and JGB rates corrected -1.1 bp and -0.3 bp respectively, but yields moved higher in Autralia and New Zealand. In FX markets the yen was supported as risk aversion picked up and USD-JPY dropped to 113.80. The front end WTI future meanwhile lifted to USD 83.87, which supported the CAD.