Lets check out what happened in detail on Friday night before the open of the local markets – remember to read my weekly analysis of all major macro markets in Trading Week to put this daily noise in context.
The UK FTSE finished flat at 5854, the German DAX easing up 0.2% to 6995 points, just below the important 7000 level. There’s important localised data for both bourses to react to this week – CPI and GDP, so keep an eye on those prints.
The Euro (EUR/USD) rose slightly against the USD at at 1.328, with support at 1.30 clear on the chart below. The USD Index is steady at 79.2 its support level at 78 points the one to watch in the coming week.
All eyes on the AUD again this week, which is trying to arrest its downward slide against the USD – the 1.046 level is the one to watch, if you have a proclivity for short term noise! A rise above 1.06 means the commodity proxy is no longer a pox.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the US bourses on Friday did well, responding ok to housing data again, the S&P500 rising 0.3% to 1397 points as the Dow Jones Industrial Average also went up 0.3% to 13,080 points. See my analysis of the S&P in Trading Week for my thoughts on where it could be going…
On to the important debt markets, where the 3 major 10 year bonds I follow US 10 year T-Notes, German bunds and Aussies (Kangaroo) all lost 4 basis points in yield as they were bid up. The results were 2.23%, 1.87% and 4.17% respectively, with the Aussie below the cash rate (at 4.25%).
To commodities, where base metals mostly increased, copper up 1.1% on declining Chinese inventories, lead up 0.6%, aluminium 0.3%, since up 1%, whislt nickel fell 1.5%. With energies, the news that Iranian oil exports declined in March, due to Western oil sanctions, had Brent futures up 1.6% to $125USD a barrel, with WTI futures up 1.4% at U$106.87 per barrel.
Gold (in USD) had a solid night, moving from $1645 at the end of the Hong Kong session to $1665 where it is making gains at the start of the Monday session here in Asia. Here’s the hourly chart of the last couple of months movement, you can see it needs to pass the $1665 level to make any headway against the short term dominant downtrend:
On these relatively good leads the S&P/ASX200 index futures point to a slightly lower open or possibly flat, at 4270 points, with the New Zealand NXZ50 up 0.3% providing a good lead for the Asian session.
My Trading Day post will cover the Asian market session and the “ASX8” stocks after the close in the afternoon.
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