ForexLive Asia Wrap: Chinese New Year and Japan Foundation Day Holidays Make for an Illiquid, Choppy Day

The only economic data point of note was Australian December Housing Finance:

Australian December Home Loans -1.5% M/M (vs. -0.1% expected)

But there were some significant news items to be aware of:

The WSJ reported that G-7 officials plan to make individual comments in coming days, even if they haven't agreed on a joint statement.
Swiss National Bank Governing Board member Fritz Zurbruegg said the franc remains too strong and uncertainty about Europe still makes the central bank's currency cap necessary, according to an interview to be published Monday in a Swiss newspaper. More here too.

Flows were minimal today, but what flows there were had an exaggerated impact in the thin, illiquid, holiday conditions.

EUR/USD fell early in the day on selling from US investment names, triggering stops below 1.3340 to take the rate to 1.3325 before it sharply rose to 1.3380. It settled 1.3365/77 for the remainder of the session.

EUR/CHF buying drove it higher as the CHF was sold off on Zurbruegg's comments (see news bullets, above)

USD/JPY lost ground in the morning, down to 92.36 before back to 92.70 and settling around 92.45/55 for the balance of the day.

AUD/USD didn't have much of a reaction to the worse than expected housing finance figures, but sold off late in the day back below 1.0300; NZD/USD fell away a little with it, below 0.8330. The moves were driven by late flows in a very thin market.