‘Twas the morning of Xmas and all through the markets, not a human creature was stirring…but it appears the machines took major advantage of the low liquidity...

Around 730amET, it seems the algos went on a deep stop hunt, flash-crashing EURUSD by four big figures, taking out the November 7th low stops – all the way back to the lowest print since mid July.

Prices then stabilized after ramping back higher.

Additionally, there appears to be some dollar liquidity stress once again – specifically in Japanese markets as the forward discount for USDJPY spiked from around 0.04 yen to around 0.23 yen.

As Bloomberg notes, the discount for buying the yen at future dates widened sharply as non-U.S. banks, which typically buys dollars now with sell-back contract at a future date, scrambled to procure greenbacks for the year-end.

While seasonal, it is very clear how much more stressed dollar liquidity is this year than in recent years.

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