Our market is heading for a solid, 37 point gain later this morning when trading resumes after the Bank of Japan dropped its monetary easing bombshell on markets on Friday afternoon and sparked a big rally.

The Australian December 31 earnings season picks up pace this week.

In the wake of the Bank of Japan’s shock decision to expand its easing program by moving to paying banks negative interest rates on surplus cash, attention will switch to a trio of central banks meeting this week, led by the Reserve Bank of Australia tomorrow, the central bank of India (also tomorrow) and the Bank of England on Thursday night, our time.

It’s the turn of energy companies to dominate the US 4th quarter earnings season this week and the news ain’t going to be pretty, lots of red ink or small amounts of green among lots of talk of cutting, slashing and postponing.

For the past couple of years, he has been telling the 40,000 or so shareholders who usually attend the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting that they should consider using the Airbnb room sharing service to avoid price gouging by hoteliers in the company’s home town.

The Aussie dollar jumped back over 71 US cents (peaking at 71.29 in trading) overnight as US stock markets and oil prices shrugged off gloom from Europe and much of Asia yesterday.

Wall Street sagged in the wake of the US Federal Reserve’s sit and watch decision this morning with major indices dipping further into the red after the central bank issued its statement at 6 am Sydney time.

New Zealand’s central bank has joined the US Federal Reserve in holding interest rates steady while acknowledging that threats to the country’s economy had risen in recent weeks – specifically to the outlook for growth and inflation.

There was absolutely nothing in yesterday’s inflation figures to force the Reserve Bank’s hand on interest rates at its first meeting for the year next Tuesday.

A decade of solid, ground-breaking growth has ended for Apple with the tech giant forecasting a slide in sales this quarter off the back of a lacklustre performance in the three months to December where management blamed the strong dollar for the weak performance and not a lack of gee-whizz new models and ideas.

At one stage last night it looked as though financial markets were headed for another crunching sell off as global oil prices retraced their sharp gains of last Friday and Chinese stock markets sold off sharply in late trading with the key Shanghai market down more than 6% to new 13 month lows.

The slowdown in the Chinese economy has had a big knock-on effect on South Korea (Australia’s fourth biggest trading partner) which yesterday revealed that its economy has slowed sharply in the final three months of 2015.

While the first meeting of the year of the US Federal Reserve’s key policymaking committee will grab headlines around the globe this week, inflation will be the focus for Australia with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the December quarter and 2015 being released on Wednesday.

Apple’s first quarter earnings report around 8am on Wednesday will be the big test for investors in the US and around the world, more so than Netflix overall solid figures were last week.

The ASX is expected to open stronger today after a 1% gain in the overnight futures market on Friday night in the wake of the second day of recovery on global markets.

So where will oil go this week after last week’s big slide and even bigger rebound?

Wall Street swung wildly overnight through a 800 point plus range, slumping 560 points at one stage, before soaring back in later afternoon trading.

Suddenly, the prospects of an interest rate cut have risen in New Zealand with a shock slide in inflation in the three months to the end of December. Consumer prices fell by a very large 0.5% in December, leaving an annual rate of just 0.1%, which is well short of the Reserve Bank’s target of 2%.

One production report told us the whole story about what is happening in the Chinese economy.

‘No sh&t Sherlock’ might be the response to yesterday’s statement from Fitch Ratings that Australia’s banks face a tough 2016 with the prospects for slowing profit growth, possible increases in impaired loan charges and rising pressures on hopes for dividend growth.

After an early argghh, investors had second thoughts about China’s December and 2015 economic data dump yesterday and markets recovered, sending shares and currencies higher.

A weak start is expected for the ASX today ahead of the release later in the day of the December quarter GDP figures and other economic data for the month of December and 2015 as a whole.