Asia

By Vincent Cignarella is an FX strategist who writes for Bloomberg

The Japanese yen is becoming more and more of a proxy for the Trump trade. If that’s true, dollar bulls better keep bailing.

Since the beginning of the year, the yen has nearly halved its post-election losses and has broken several major resistance levels. This is a signal the currency has momentum. If the dollar drops another leg -- a trading term for a short-term trend - it could be a sign that the Trump-inspired rally is over.

In an unexpected announcement, India’s central bank left borrowing costs unchanged for a second straight meeting, shifting its policy stance to neutral from accommodative, effectively signaling an end to easing cycle. The RBI left the benchmark repurchase rate at a six-year low of 6.25 percent, on expectations of a 25 bps cut. Central bank authorities left rates unchanged at the last, December 7 meeting, while saying that the policy stance remains accommodative.

In a mostly quiet Wednesday session, Asian stocks rose overnight along with European bourses, which were led higher by miners after Rio Tinto posted higher profits for the first time in three years and a bigger-than-expected dividend, while India’s Sensex extended declines after the central bank unexpectedly left rates unchanged. US futures were little changed as oil continued to fall after API reported a huge inventory build in the last week.

A new study looking at human DNA reveals that early humans may have interbred with a  mysterious ‘alien species’ over 30,000 years ago.  According to scientists, updated genome sequences from two relatives of modern humans reveal that these groups interbred with several human-like species, one of which was “not human”. 3tags.org reports: The ancient genomes, one from a Neanderthal and one from a member of an archaic human group called the Denisovans, were presented at a meeting on ancient DNA at the Royal Society in London.

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