By Chris Becker
Another mixed day on Asian equity markets, with the ASX200 putting in a small end to a good intraday session, rising almost 8 points, the highest since July 2011 (the last time the bullhawks said everything was fine and dandy). Check out a full roundup by sector including some the top 8 stocks and some technical analysis below.
The Nikkei 225 had a better day as the Yen weakened, while the Shanghai Comp gave back some gains, the Hang Seng – the main risk proxy – has had a solid day, following iron ore and other metals. The Aussie dollar slipped past the 1.05 barrier today in what I like to call its “stealth rally” – slowly moving up on USD weakness (remember there’s two sides to this currency war, and one side desperately wants to lose. No, not the French):
The US Dollar Index is teetering on the 80 point key level, while gold (USD) is also slowly moving up, its 200 day moving average just below, trying to build momentum coming into the FOMC Meeting:
Australian Stocks
My preferred sectors – health and IT – came back today, but it was materials that lifted the index off the floor as financials – a mere 42% of the entire index, with CBA almost getting to a disgusting $100 billion market capitalisation today – slipped. Check out the materials sector vs my preferred Chinese equity market, the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index:
The market itself is poised above that top orange line, although it could easily retrace back to the first KC Signal (what’s this? Hint: its named after the next likely V8 supercar champ) level at 4440 points, as this rally has been extremely fast bouncing off the 200 DMA, due to materials and financials rallying simulatenously:
Are we going to see 4900-5000 points in 2013? Anything is possible. There’s a couple obstacles in the way though….
This free daily update should be read alongside Live Trades articles, published every morning at Macro Investor, and placed in context with the longer trends and macro drivers within the overall technical picture, where former “Trading Week” readers will find it reborn as “Technicals“, published 8.30am each Monday morning. Chris Becker is an investment strategist at Macro Investor, Australia’s leading independent investment newsletter covering stocks, trades, property and fixed interest. A free 21-day trial is available at the site. You can follow Chris on Twitter.
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