Market News

The UK retail sales release will be one of the main items to watch out for in the economic calendar today, especially after the latest inflation and labour market figures have given the BOE plenty to think about ahead of its November meeting.

For the September report, retail sales are expected to fall by 0.1% on the month, following a 0.5% increase in August. Meanwhile, retail sales are expected to rise by 1.0% annually - a slowdown from 2.4% previously. The numbers might not be all too interesting on the surface, but they will matter to the broader context in shaping the BOE outlook.

UK headline annual inflation climbed to 3.5% in September, with core annual inflation also picking up to 2.8%. That is hardly reassuring for the BOE,…

• HSBC’s RedCoin stablecoin goes live in Hong Kong: what the launch answers, and what it still doesn’t
• Gold drops below $4,000 for first time since July as yields and dollar weigh
• Three AI listings stalled in a month: the money behind the AI boom is getting pickier
• Japan’s 2.4% underlying inflation puts a higher BoJ terminal rate in play
• PBOC sets USD/ CNY reference rate for today at 6.7180 (vs. estimate at 6.6758)
• Japan flash PMI holds at 52.3 as services gain offsets factory slowdown before BoJ
• What is blockchain finality? Why Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana settle at very different speeds
• Japan core inflation tops BoJ’s 2% target for first time since December, yen firms
• Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade cuts settlement to under a second: what it changes,…

The squeeze is likely to widen the gap within the AI trade. Cash-generating hyperscalers and established suppliers can fund spending internally, while newer, debt- or equity-reliant players face higher costs and a narrower window. Credit is the market to watch: spreads on high-yield AI infrastructure debt, led by CoreWeave, are the earliest warning of whether stress is spreading or staying contained. In Asia, Korean and Taiwanese chip stocks are highly sensitive to any slowdown in AI capital spending, a risk already reflected in SK hynix’s roughly halved market value since June. Oil is part of the cost-of-capital story: Brent above $110 a barrel keeps inflation and rate expectations high, keeping bond yields elevated and raising the…

The $4,000 break matters more as a psychological level than as a reaction to news, and losing it could trigger further selling from momentum-driven and leveraged holders. The most important near-term link runs through oil: Brent above $110 a barrel keeps inflation expectations high, which supports further Fed tightening, higher Treasury yields and a firm dollar, all of which weigh on a metal that pays no interest. The Fed decision on October 28 is the next major test. A hawkish message would likely add pressure, while any sign of a pause could give gold room to recover. Equity volatility is also a risk: further sharp falls in tech shares could force more selling of gold to meet margin calls, as happened during Thursday’s chip sell-off.

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HSBC has started rolling out RedCoin, its Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin, to more than 3.3 million users of its PayMe payments app, according to the South China Morning Post. The phased launch began on Friday, 23 October, starting with transfers between users and payments to merchants. Three weeks ago, investingLive flagged that RedCoin had a name but no launch date. That question now has an answer. Two others do not: which blockchain RedCoin runs on, and whether it can ever leave HSBC’s own apps.

What happened

According to the SCMP, PayMe users can activate a RedCoin wallet with no minimum balance and no extra account-opening steps. Once they update the app, they can select the wallet and send money instantly, through an interface…

The PBOC allows the yuan to fluctuate within a +/- 2% range, around this reference rate. More here on this.

• Bank injects 258bn yuan via overnight reverse repos, no 7-day RRs

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As background on the overnight OMOs:

• Explainer: China eyes overnight rate as main policy tool, what it means for markets

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at investinglive.com.

The debate is shifting from when the BoJ hikes again to where rates peak, which matters most for the front end of the JGB curve. A market that moves from pricing a terminal rate around 1.75% to one closer to or above 2% would be likely to push two-year and five-year yields higher after their recent rally. The yen firmed after the data, but a sustained rally would probably need the BoJ to endorse a higher peak next week, given the large trade deficit and the wide gap with US rates. For equities, a higher-for-longer BoJ path tends to favour banks over exporters. Oil remains the key upstream driver: Middle East-linked energy costs are feeding Japanese inflation even with fuel subsidies in place, so crude above $110 a barrel keeps upside risk…

Solana switched on its Alpenglow upgrade on Wednesday, 21 October, replacing the consensus system the network has run since its 2020 launch. The headline change is speed. Transactions now reach finality, the point where they can no longer be reversed, in a fraction of a second instead of roughly 12.8 seconds. That is a real improvement for exchanges, payment apps and traders using the network. Whether it creates more demand for SOL itself is a separate question, and the early price action suggests the market sees it that way.

What happened

Anza, the firm behind Agave, Solana’s main validator software, scheduled the switch for about 14:50 UTC. The feature activated at the start of epoch 1064. The old system, TowerBFT, kept running for…

The yen firmed after the data, with the stronger-than-expected core-core reading giving it modest support in a USD/JPY range that has held between roughly 157 and 159 for most of October. A sustained move lower in USD/JPY would likely need confirmation from the BoJ next week, while the large trade deficit and the wide rate gap with the US continue to cap the yen’s gains. In bonds, the shorter maturities most sensitive to December hike pricing are the most exposed to a hawkish rethink after the JGB rally of recent weeks. Energy remains a key driver of the inflation outlook: oil prices above $110 a barrel are feeding import costs, and the BoJ is expected to raise its inflation forecasts partly for that reason. Electricity subsidies are…

When you send Bitcoin, Ether or SOL, the transaction shows up almost immediately. That doesn’t mean it is permanent. Every blockchain has a point after which a transaction can no longer be reversed, called finality, and the time it takes to get there ranges from under a second to around an hour depending on the network. Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade this week cut its finality time from about 12.8 seconds to a target of roughly 150 milliseconds, which makes this a good moment to explain what finality is and why traders should care.

What finality means

A blockchain is a shared record kept by thousands of computers that must agree on which transactions happened and in what order. Agreement takes time. Until enough of the network has signed off,…

The People’s Bank of China is due to set the daily USD/CNY reference rate at around 0115 GMT (2115 US Eastern time), a fixing that remains one of the most closely watched signals in Asian foreign exchange markets. China operates a managed floating exchange rate system, under which the renminbi (yuan) is allowed to trade within a prescribed band around a central reference rate, or midpoint, set each trading day by the PBOC. The current trading band permits the currency to move plus or minus 2% from the official midpoint during onshore trading hours. Each morning, the PBOC determines the midpoint based on a range of inputs. These include the previous day’s closing price, movements in major currencies, particularly the US dollar, broader…

The survey gives the BoJ a mixed but broadly workable backdrop: steady growth and persistent cost pressure support further policy normalisation, while weaker hiring and softer demand argue for a gradual pace. For the yen, the data are unlikely to shift expectations much on their own, coming alongside this morning’s above-forecast core-core CPI reading. In JGBs, the combination of solid activity and sticky input costs is consistent with the market keeping a December hike in play. For equities, the slowdown in manufacturing new orders and export business is a mild headwind for exporters. Raw material costs remain a key pressure point, and sustained high oil prices linked to the Middle East conflict are likely to keep input cost inflation…