by Chris Becker
Outside Australia its been a relatively bullish day on Asia stock markets following a wobbly lead from Wall Street overnight. Japanese stocks led the way as the Yen continued its weakening trend against the US dollar, up over 1% while the Shanghai Composite is currently up 0.4% and holding on with the Hang Seng slipping going into the close. Eurostoxx futures are down 0.2% as we go into a very important night of economic releases.
The ASX200 finished the day down nearly 1% to 5433 points, dragged down by resource/gold stocks with BHP off more than 3%, RIO down 2.7% and Fortescue almost 4% as investors re-rate the extractors in a hawkish Fed environment.