ForexLive Asia FX news wrap: Euro lower s coalition talks collapse in Germany

Weekend:

A quiet opening in Asia for Monday but soon after, prior to Tokyo getting fully active, news hit that coalition talks in Germany had collapsed. Read from the bottom up for the chronology:

On the face of it, the 'Merkel will inform German President she has failed to form coalition government' is likely indicative of a fresh election to be called ... but I'll be awaiting any announcement before concluding that. We'll see.

EUR/USD and EUR crosses dropped on the news, EUR/USD to just above 1.1720 before stabilizing. The bounce back was limited to circa 1.1750 and it slipped back to under 1.1730 in following hours again - its just above there as I update.

That was the market-moving news for the day. Over the weekend there was the usual toing and froing on Brexit (see bullets above) and also comments on the progress of the US tax legislation ('more work to do' again, see bullets above) .

Japanese trade data on Monday showed a dip for exports growth from the previous month, but a still strong showing. USD/JPY has had an uneventful, small range session, buying circa 111.90 and sellers around 112.20. USD/CHF, a small range also and ditto for Cable.

AUD/USD is slightly under its late US Friday area, with not much fresh to move it today. NZD/USD was soft also but has ticked up in recent hours to be more or less unchanged from its late Friday US level.

USD/CAD is a few points higher on the day, gold down a few cents. BTC had a scorcher over the weekend, to above 8k USD