Global FX DATA:

• • • ASIAN MARKET
      
      Asian shares extended their recovery from two-month lows into a fifth day on Friday as the Wall Street market volatility gauge fell, while the U.S. dollar was undermined by various worries including rising inflation.
       
    • GOLD
      
      Gold prices held firm on Friday to remain on track for their biggest weekly percentage gain in nearly two years, buoyed by a weaker U.S. dollar and as investors looked to hedge against inflation.
       
  • • OIL
      
      Oil prices edged higher on Friday as the dollar stood near a three-year low in subdued Asian trade, with many markets closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.
       
    • INDIA
      
      Nirav Modi’s name is a stamp of corporate India’s growing global prestige. On Hollywood red carpets, his diamonds have sparkled on the necklines and dangled from the earlobes of actors and models like Kate Winslet, Dakota Johnson and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
       
    • DOLLAR
      
      The dollar slipped to a three-year low against a basket of currencies on Friday, headed for its biggest weekly loss in two years, as bearish factors offset support the U.S. currency could take from rising Treasury yields.
       
    • CRYPTOCURRENCY
      
      Japan's two cryptocurrency industry groups are planning to merge to form a self-regulating body, seeking to better safeguard investors after last month's $530 million heist of digital money, sources involved in the negotiations said.
       
    • SOUTH KOREA 
      
      South Korea’s “Iron Man”, Yun Sung-bin rocketed to the men’s skeleton gold on Friday and become the first athlete outside Europe or North America to win an Olympic sliding medal after dominating the event at the Pyeongchang Games.

    • AUSTRALIA
      
      A major rift opened up in Australia’s coalition government on Friday as Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce refused to resign over an affair with a staff member, and blasted Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s condemnation of his behaviour as “inept”.

    • JAPAN
      
      Japan’s government on Friday reappointed Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda for another term and chose an advocate of bolder monetary easing as one of his deputies, a sign the central bank will be in no rush to dial back its massive stimulus program.

    • MEXICO
      
      Mexico’s foreign minister will travel to Jamaica, Grenada and Saint Lucia in March, a Mexican official said on Thursday, as part of efforts to erode Venezuela’s oil-based influence in the Caribbean.

    • US
      
      The senior U.S. diplomat for Asia, Susan Thornton, said on Thursday she understood the Trump administration had no strategy for a so-called bloody nose strike on North Korea, but Pyongyang would be forced to give up its nuclear weapons “one way or another.”