ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigerian authorities asked in court Thursday for cryptocurrency exchange Binance and two of its executives to be tried for alleged money laundering and tax evasion, the first legal step following weeks of a criminal investigation into the trading platform. Authorities, however, alleged the platform was being used for money laundering and terrorism financing. Nigeria harbors Africa’s largest crypto economy in terms of trade volume with many citizens using crypto to hedge their finances against surging inflation and the declining local currency. Only Tigran Gambaryan, an American citizen and Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, attended the court hearing as Nadeem Anjarwalla, the company’s regional manager remains at large after fleeing custody in late March.
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Several Chinese developers’ shares have been suspended from trading in Hong Kong starting Tuesday due to their failure to meet the deadline for publishing last year’s annual results, another sign of the turmoil in the country’s real-estate sector. Japan may intervene in the FX market at any time should the yen weaken beyond its current range, the country’s former currency chief said. Dollar-yen options traders are betting authorities may let the yen slide to 153 or beyond before stepping in. Speaker Mike Johnson has begun publicly laying out potential conditions for extending a fresh round of American military assistance to Ukraine, the strongest indication yet that he plans to push through the House a package that many Republicans view as toxic and have tried to block. An intervention would probably target a five-yen rally against the greenback, strategists said.
South Korean President Yoon said North Korea will try to sow confusion in South Korea ahead of the election, while it was also reported that South Korea imposed sanctions on two Russian organisations and two Russian individuals linked to North Korea’s missile program. Markets will be hoping to avoid any accidents of their own after a strong Q1 for risk assets. Welcome back to all those in Europe that enjoyed the long Easter weekend. Attempted drone attack on an oil refinery within Russia’s Nizhnekamsk, via Tass; attack was thwarted, no damage occurred. With Jim off skiing in the Alps, and trying to avoid adding to his injuries in the process, Henry and I are filling in on the EMR duties for a couple of weeks.
In Europe, most markets are mostly higher after reopening after the Easter holiday with only Spain in the red: energy, AI, and semis the best performing segments with additional support from banks, as regional curves bear steepen. Today’s macro data focus is on JOLTS and 3x Fedspeakers. The risk-on tone in APAC where HK showed significant outperformance. In premarket trading, crypto-related stocks fell with Coinbase Global down 2.5%, as pressure continued to build on Bitcoin, which shed 5% to trade below $67,000, having fallen about 10% from its mid-March peaks. The yield curve is steeper, and the Bloomberg dollar index dropped. Bitcoin slumped after several sharp sell orders hit futures during Asian trading.
11.0bps, as stronger manufacturing ISM data reignited doubts over the extent of Fed rate cuts this year. With the start of a new month, Henry just published our usual performance review of how different assets fared over March and Q1 (see here). Before reviewing these latest moves and previewing the rest of the week ahead, let us recap the notable milestones we saw for risk assets in Q1. 10% in Q1, marking the first time in over a decade that it’s seen back-to-back quarterly gains in double digits.