Bank of Japan Governor Ueda's remarks on the challenges of maintaining easy policy led to a surge in yen strength. USDJPY broke below its 200DMA before recovering slightly in the late US session to move higher from lows of 141.71. The pair is now back around 143.50 as markets question whether an early policy move is likely and position for the US jobs data due today. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq 100 rose 1.5%, surpassing 16,000, driven by tech stocks. Alphabet surged 5.3% post the launch of the Gemini language model, set to boost Google's generative AI competitiveness when widely available in early 2024. {table} US ... (full story)