by Chris Becker
The first week of the trading year is almost over and we have the most important event on the calendar tonight – the US NFP – but that is being overshadowed by the big move by the PBOC in shoring up the Yuan. This is impacting Asian shares and currencies alike so let’s have a look.
The Shanghai Composite is down a few points and listless going into the long lunch break, down 0.1% to 3161 points as volume dries up. The Hang Seng is doing a better, up 0.4% almost breaking through ATR resistance on the daily chart, with momentum finally positive:
Stocks in Japan are selling off even as Yen puts in a small weakening move, although that is starting to rollover as the afternoon wanes. The Nikkei is down another 0.3% and almost taking back its big 2% lift earlier in the week, remaining unable to get to my target of 20000 points. The USDJPY pair had a small jump up to but not above the 116 handle and remains under its hourly downtrend line:
S&P Futures are steady and look positive going into the London open with an obvious breaking point just above current prices that could break through sharply on a positive NFP:
The ASX200 is currently dead flat after rising nearly 0.5% on the surprise trade surplus print, now at 5750 points as traders position before the NFP print/weekend.
The Aussie dollar is also stuck, currently at 73.50 against USD as price as I expected is slowly reverting to mean (the hourly trendline) but Im cautious going into the NFP:
The data calendar tonight will focus exclusively on the monthly unemployment print from the US – the non farm payrolls for December.