By Chris Becker
Remember to read “Trading Week“, published Saturday morning, to put these events and ideas in context.
More shenanigans today, but this time on our own bourse, the ASX200 which was going fine leading into lunch then slumped unexpectedly – mainly financials and insurance stocks to blame – possibly on words emanating from the Great Captain of Banking Reserve, thereof as he spoke at PM Gillard’s economic forum? Anyways, it fell 9 points or 0.22% to 4063 points.
Instead of the daily chart, check out the weekly – apologies for the candlesticks, but they really show that the market has stagnated for the last month, ever so slightly rising:
The orange lines are my key levels for medium term price moves by the way.
Japanese industrial orders came out pretty spectacular this morning, which buoyed all other Asian markets, with the Nikkei 225 up 0.6%, trying to get out of its funk, the Chinese markets doing better, although the Hang Seng had a similar slump to the ASX200, only up 0.4%, the mainland Chinese composites are all up, around about 1% or so.
I think we’re still on a knife edge, and the market still requires a bullish catalyst, and I think everyone is still waiting til June 17-20 (Greek elections and the FOMC meeting) before a decisive move is made.
On currency markets, there were no real big movers today,although the Yen is still trying to work its way above 80 on the USD/JPY pair. The Aussie also is trying hard to get back to parity, and is currently just above 99.57 cents against the USD:
Gold remained in a tight $10USD trading range throughout the Asian session and now moving into the London open has opened up above $1610USD per ounce, or $1617AUD per ounce
I said yesterday “I am seeing a series of higher lows on the hourly charts since mid-May, there maybe a retest of a breakout above $1600 soon, but I’m not holding my breath” – is this the retest and a breakout above the downtrend?
Other commodities are a bit mixed with WTI crude flat, whilst ICE Brent is up 0.4%%, and other precious metals down against gold.
Finally, in the debt markets today, we saw another see-saw move of Aussie 10 years, with yields back above 3% again, rising nearly 8 points to 3.05%. Bond markets in Europe have opened, and seeing mild selloffs, including German bunds (up 6 points already – wow!)…..
Tonight
The data flow tonight includes EMU Industrial Production (-1.2% expected for April), US PPI (-0.6% expected for May) and Retail sales (-0.2% expected for May).
Check out our Economic Calendar here for the rest of this week’s data prints.
You can find me on Twitter here.
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