by Chris Becker
Quite an uneventful session in Asia today with stocks putting in scratch or slightly lower sessions, with the USD and other currencies treading water in response to similar lack of movement in overnight markets.
The Shanghai Composite fell into the red before the long lunch break and is back to almost where it started the day at just above 3200 points. The Hong Kong based Hang Seng is doing better, up 0.5% at 22335 points, but no indication yet that’s its correction is over:
In Japan, the Nikkei is basically unchanged, as Yen remains weak against USD with the USDJPY slipping slightly before recovering to be just over the 108 handle going into the London open. The 4 hourly/daily trendline remains intact:
S&P Futures are up slightly heading into the European session, with the ASX200 down 0.4% with a sour response to the release of the latest RBA minutes, closing at 5326 points. Again, resistance overhead is too strong with only modest bids on financials today as miners dragged back the bourse.
The Aussie dollar had a small bid on the Sydney open, trying to get back to the 76 handle but failed, staying at 75.60 against USD with better luck on the crosses. Watch the ratcheting ATR resistance line above for signs of a reversal:
The only actionable action to report on is a possible spike in oil with WTI building on its late reversal from overnight, now above $44USD per barrel on the hourly chart. It’s a little overdone, but this could translate into further gains tonight with my target at $46:
The data calendar tonight includes some big releases, namely German and Italian 3Q GDP, plus UK CPI for October. We then get advanced retail sales from the US – all but the latter looking back data that will probably not cause a lot of concern just yet.