Archived IMT (2008.11.16)

MIND THE GAP. Early Monday FX trade in Asian/Pacific shows sharp gains in USD and JPY after Friday's late session deterioration in US equities. Some Forex brokers who shut at 3 pm EST Friday had their prices close significantly away from the closing prices at 5 pm EST Friday and/or 3-4 pm EST Sunday. For exampe, GBPUSD now at 1.4666 well down from Friday's 1.4940, USDJPY at 95.98 from Friday's 97.60s, and AUDJPY at 61.86 from Friday's 0.6660s. The G20 meeting in Washington proposed creating the first central clearinghouse for credit default swap market, along with more supervision, but none of this is seen successfully allaying the immediate market bearishness emerging from Friday's horrible US retail sales and the late session slide in equities.