The resonance of the New Year is starting to show its true colors at the start of the first full trading-week this year. The Dow finished a volatile day lower, in some ways ruining the sense of stability that pervaded in last week’s market. Volatility in equity prices was complemented by some extreme moves in the fx markets. Looking at today’s biggest percentage movers we can see the sheer magnitude of price action today, with some moves extending to more than 3.0%. The dollar in particular was heavily mixed across the board. We have seen some substantial gains against the euro and yen, in conjunction with weakness against the pound and commodity currencies. Today’s trading was a truly unorganized and unpredictable force.

Dollar rallied strongly on the opening day of the first full working week of the year as enthusiasm over President elect Obama stimulus package pushed the unit higher against the yen while the euro suffered a 300 point loss on worries over the burgeoning Italian bond scandal. According to the Independent in UK , Italian municipalities may face as much as $35 Billion in losses over a financing scheme gone wrong, sold to the them by major investment banks such as UBS and Deutsche Bank. The Italian authorities are considering the possibility of suing the principal market makers or misrepresenting the risks to the municipal investors in these complex over the counter deals.

EUR/USD got off to a strong start on the first trading day of the week, as optimism among Asian equity investors, whetted risk appetite pushing the pair to within a whisker of 1.3500 level in early European trade. Both Nikkei and Kospi propelled higher rallying more than 5% each on the day, boosted by a variety of factors from the expectations of bailout of US automakers to the more than 7% spike in Baltic Dry Goods index on Friday.