Morning Wrap (21.07.2025)

The Japanese yen rose at the start of Monday's session following the results of the Japanese upper house elections. Prime Minister Ishiba's ruling coalition suffered a serious defeat, losing its majority in the upper house after already losing control of the lower house in October. Nevertheless, the result was not as bad for the current coalition as had been expected before the weekend, and Prime Minister Ishiba promised to remain in office.
Now that both chambers are ruled by a minority, Japan seems doomed to a period of political uncertainty. For this reason, the scale of gains on the USDJPY pair was very quickly limited.
The Japanese stock exchange is closed today due to a bank holiday, which further limits liquidity in the local market.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand's preferred model of sectoral factors, published later in the session, showed inflation falling to 2.8% y/y from 2.9% in the first quarter, with core inflation falling to 3.7% from 4.0%. These data support expectations of an interest rate cut in August, which is why the NZD weakened during the Asian session.
Meanwhile, the People's Bank of China left its key interest rates unchanged, as expected: the 1-year LPR at 3.00% and the 5-year LPR at 3.50%.
Futures contracts on US stock indices are not showing any major price changes ahead of the cash session opening in Europe. JP225 contracts rose slightly after the weekend elections in Japan.
EU representatives are to meet this week to formalize a retaliation plan in case of a possible failure to reach an agreement with the US, according to Bloomberg.
At the beginning of Monday, precious metals are performing particularly well, continuing their rebound and extending their current upward trends. Gold is already up 0.56% and rising to last week's local highs.
Investors' attention will turn today to data from the Polish labor market and industrial price data in Canada.

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