Huge Shift Between Sunday Night and Monday Morn

March 30, 2026

Financial news headlines on Sunday evening (when news feeds were reporting 4% plus plunges in Japanese and South Korean share price value, yen depreciation through 160/$ to 160.47, and further sharp jumps in 10-year sovereign debt yields) had pointed to a grim Monday session that hasn’t been the case. Instead as of 8 AM EDT, U.S. equity futures are up around 0.6% as are the major stock exchanges of Euroland, and the British FTSE has risen 1%. Equity market losses were trimmed to 2.8% in Tokyo and 3.0% in Seoul, and markets in Hong Kong and Australia lost less than 1%. Ten-year sovereign debt yields are six basis points lower in the United States and registering net drops of three bps in the U.K., France and Italy and by two bps in Japan and Germany. The yen strengthened back through the 160 threshold to 159.5 currently, supported by Japanese Vice Finance Minister Mimura’s intervention threat and the summary of the recent Bank of Japan Board meeting that revealed serious discussion about an increasingly upward tilt in future inflationary risks, reaffirmed a commitment to a gradual rise in the central bank’s interest rate, and underscored mounting concern regarding the yen.

In other market movements overnight, the dollar, aside from a 0.5% net drop against the yen, has retained its upward direction, climbing by a net 0.2% versus the euro, Aussie dollar, sterling, and Canadian dollar and by 0.1% relative to the Swiss franc. West Texas Intermediate oil at $101.4 per barrel, has climbed near 2% on balance, and prices for gold and silver are up by 1.0% and 1.9%.

The apparent major catalyst behind the today’s better tone in equities and sovereign debt appears as so often of late to have been the case to reflect comment from the U.S. president who seemingly spends little time sleeping overnight and who has a rather unique definition of what separates truth from falsehood. Mr. Trump is reportedly now claiming that most of the 15 demands to end America’s conflict with Iran are acceptable to Iranian leaders including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. He expressed confidence that a similar arrangement to the one with Venezuela where the United States exerts effective control over Iranian oil can emerge. As if by magic, two Chinese oil carriers are reported to have gone through the strait without incident, but there doesn’t seem to be any formal acknowledgement from Iran renouncing their former defiance against a ceasefire.

Many data have been reported around the world on the penultimate day of the first calendar quarter. Economic sentiment in the euro area fell 1.6 basis points to a half-year low reading of 96.6 in March. The index as recently as January had touched a three-year high of 99.3 but has now soured understandably in the face of sharply higher energy costs and rising measures of expected future inflation, which surged to respective 43- and 35-month highs in the sub-indices for consumer inflation expectations and expected selling prices. Consumer confidence registered a 29-month low, and service sector economic sentiment dropped to a 5-month low.

Lifted by a 31-month 7.2% pace in energy costs, German consumer price inflation leaped to a 26-month high of 2.7% in March from 1.9% in February and 1.8% in January.

Irish CPI inflation, a 29-month high of 3.6% this month, was up from 2.5% in January and February. In Bulgaria, CPI inflation climbed from a 14-month low of 3.3% in February to 3.4%. Belgian CPI inflation of 1.7% remained comparatively contained at 1.7% but still above January’s 14-month high of 1.1%.

Prior to the war’s outbreak, February producer price inflation rates announced today remained negative in Greece (-1.7%), Italy (-2.7%) and Austria (-1.4%).

The year-on-year advance of Indian industrial production during February revived to 5.2% from 4.8% in January, but the two-month average increase of 5.0% was well down from 7.6% in the final two months of 2025.

Cypriot industrial production posted decelerating on-year increase of 4.3% in December and 3.7% in January after 8.6% in November.

A 2.2 12-month rate of rise in Spanish retail sales last month was down from 3.8% in January and the slowest 15 months. Likewise, Estonian retail sales growth slowed from a 45-month high of 8.5% in January to 4.8% in February, but Croatian retail sales growth edged up 0.1 percentage point to a 2-month high of 3.1%. Swedish retail sales, which have exceeded year-earlier levels in 17 of the last 18 months, recorded a less robust 2.4% increase in February that that of 3.9% in January.

Swiss business confidence deteriorated to a 9-month low of 96.1 this month from a 17-month high of 103.6 in February. Business confidence in Portugal fell less sharply this month but still reached a 9-month low. A reading for Dutch business confidence of -0.7 in March was the second highest value in 35 months.

The adverse effect of the Middle Eastern war seen, too, in Turkish economic sentiment, which swung from an 11-month high in February to a 6-month low in March.

Attention now turns to a speech that Federal Reserve Chairman Powell will be delivering later today at Harvard.

This entry was posted
on Monday, March 30th, 2026 at 6:42 am and is filed under New Overnight Developments Abroad – Daily Update.
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