Welcome to Monday’s ‘Just A Minute’ bringing you a 60 second summary what’s happening in the markets:

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING TODAY

Market Overview; U.S. Retail Sales Awaited

Although there is a fairly quiet economic calendar today, there are some important economic reports to watch for this week including Thursday’s retail sales. This is expected to be flat, once again, probably down to the harsh winter conditions. There was a big turnaround in stocks at the end of the week, giving their best weekly performance this year. A rally that started Thursday continued overnight and took off even more after the January jobs report. It was a mixed bag with a weak, 113,000 nonfarm payrolls. But drops in the unemployment rate, to 6.6 percent, and in the number of long-term unemployed were regarded as positives. The S&P 500 ended the week at 1,797, up 0.8 percent, but still down 2.2 percent since the start of the year. Stocks rallied Friday as emerging markets were calmer and in the main, moved higher. The Fed’s tapering and concerns that China is weakening sent emerging currencies spiraling lower. Traders are debating whether the worst of the selloff is over, but many said the markets will have to hear from Yellen before the path becomes clearer.

Dollar Gains Before Yellen Testimony; Gold Extends Gains On Weak U.S. Jobs Data

The U.S. dollar gained to the highest level in over a week against the yen as investors bet the Federal Reserve will carry out a reduction in stimulus before Janet Yellen speaks to U.S. lawmakers tomorrow. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index halted a five-day slide, even after a Feb. 7 report showed employment growth last month in the world’s biggest economy was less than analysts expected. The dollar traded at 102.40 yen as of 2:36 p.m. in Tokyo from 102.30 on Feb 7, after touching 102.64, the strongest since Jan. 31. It added 0.1 percent to $1.3623 per euro after falling 1.1 percent last week. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against 10 major counterparts, added 0.1 percent to 1,024.56, after weakening every day since Jan. 31.

Gold meanwhile, has edged higher on speculation that the Federal Reserve would slow the pace of its stimulus tapering after a weak U.S. jobs report raised questions over the state of economic recovery. Some analysts said the gains may not last as the labour market weakness could be due to weather-related issues. There is a bearish view on gold and analysts expect prices to drop to $1,150 by the end of the year.

China’s Alipay Now World’s No. 1 Online Payment System

Alipay, China’s leading online payment system owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has overtaken Ebay’s PayPal to become the world’s top mobile-payment service, with a total volume of $150 billion in 2013. Over 100 million registered mobile users have completed more than 2.78 billion transactions on Alipay Wallet. The total volume of Alipay’s mobile payments has surged past 900 billion yuan, or $150 billion, surpassing the combined volume of U.S.-based rivals PayPal and privately held Square Inc. which was around $50 billion last year. In addition, during the recent seven-day Chinese New Year holiday, when banks were closed, Alipay Wallet users made over 100 million transactions on their phones, accounting for 52% of total online payment deals. Part of this involved the Chinese tradition of gifting money during the holiday to family and friends, with such gifts accounting for 200 million yuan in transactions.

Source: Bloomberg

That sums up Monday’s highlights! We wish you a great start to the week and hope you have a profitable day on the markets.