A typical holiday-thinned trading is witnessed in Asia so far, with most traders still on the side-lines on the back of Christmas-New Year holiday season. The Australian, New Zealand and the major European markets remain closed in observance of Boxing Day holiday. Hence, low volumes and irregular volatility is expected to remain in the week ahead.

Calendar-wise, we had a set of poor Japanese economic data released earlier today, which dragged the yen lower against its American counterpart. The USD/JPY pair partially reversed last week’s losses and edged marginally higher around 120.40, with the upside still capped by broad based USD weakness. Industrial production in Japan was down a seasonally adjusted 1.0% m/m in November, missing forecasts for a decline of 0.5% following the 1.4 percent gain in October. While the total value of retail sales in Japan was down 1.0% on year in November.

While the Antipodeans remain supported amid illiquid markets and shrug off lower commodities’ prices as markets continue to mull over Fed’s lift-off and the latest Chinese industrial profits data released over the weekend. The Chinese industrial profits fell 1.4% in Nov from a year earlier, compared with 4.6% for last month, marking a sixth consecutive month of decline.