Bonds: Lloyds moves to redeem some of its outstanding enhanced capital notes

US: 1.92% (-6bp)

UK: 1.56% (-11bp)

Germany: 0.33% (-8bp)

France: 0.64% (-10bp)

Italy: 1.42% (-10bp)

Spain: 1.51% (-11bp)

Japan: 0.10% (-13bp)

Greece: 9.58% (-1bp)

Portugal: 2.88% (-10bp)

Japan´s decision to follow the likes of Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and the Eurozone in taking their rates into 'negative' set off a wave of buying on the long-end of the government bond curve in many developed markets come Friday.

That came amid sharp gains for the US dollar versus the other 'majors' such as the pound, euro and yen.

To take note of, perhaps, Friday´s moves in foreign exchange markets led some market watchers to muse that such strength would limit the US central ban´s room for manoeuvre.

"There is an increasing risk that an improvement in the business confidence of Japanese firms and conversion of the deflationary mindset might be delayed and that the underlying trend in inflation might be negatively affected," the BoJ said following the decision.

Notes on the shorter-end of the curve advanced as well, but by less.

Yields on two-year UK government debt slipped by six basis points to 0.34% while those on similarly-dated US Treasuries were down by four basis points to 0.78% as of 18:15GMT.

Traders in the bond space were left pricing-in just 57% odds that the Fed would raise rates again in 2016.

Better than expected data on personal consumption in the fourth quarter and a surge in one of the more widely-followed regional manufacturing surveys Stateside may have acted as a brake on gains in the Treasury market.

In somewhat prescient fashion, Michael Hartnett at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch penned a note to clients on Friday, telling them that investment trends (by asset classes) since the 'market-bottom' reached in 2008-09 were "doggedly deflationary".

"The underlying message from Wall Street in recent years (underperformance of bank stocks, stubbornly low government bond yields, all-time relative highs in “high quality” stocks, and sustained outperformance of “growth” stocks over “value” stocks) has been doggedly deflationary," he said.

Acting as a backdrop, equities in Shangahi and crude oil futures both finished higher on Friday.

Out on the frontier of financial markets, in the emerging economy space, after the close of trading Standard&Poor´s downgraded Azerbaijan´s long-term sovereign debt rating below investment-grade to what traders and fund managers - the latter in particular - often refer to as 'junk'.

Back in the UK, and among corporates´ranks, Lloyds announced it would move ahead with the redemption of 3.3bn pounds of controversial high-yield or enhanced-capital notes.

Of that amount 657.4bn pounds would be repurchased on 9 February.

The legality of the move was still pending a final decision in the UK´s Supreme Court.

The two ECN issues subject to the tender offered an eye-watering between 640 and 690 basis points over three-month USD Libor.