by Chris Becker
Another wobbly day in Asia with low volatility again across currency and stock markets, with all the action in commodities for now. The only major economic highlight was the monthly numberwang – Australian unemployment – which hasn’t had a big effect as expected. We go into the London and NY sessions with the October US CPI print likely to firm the December Fed meeting to a near certainty for a rate hike.
The Shanghai Composite is stead after falling before the lunch break and looks set to close just above 3200 points again. The Hong Kong based Hang Seng is equally flaccid, down only a few points to 22261 points, with no indication yet that’s its correction is over as the daily downtrend line is still intact:
In Japan, the Nikkei is also flat, going nowhere for the session while the Yen sellers try to get the USDJPY back ontrack, pushing the pair back above the 109 handle, but only barely. Any risk reversal will see this pair drop swiftly:
S&P Futures are up fractionally heading into the European session with the ASX200 the standout in the region by closing up 0.2% to 5338 points, the first positive close this week! Resistance overhead at 5400 points will remain too high a target for mind though.
The Aussie dollar had the slightest of bips on the numberwang release before heading back down to the point of control at just below the 75 handle against USD. This looks like another pause before another selloff, so watch support at 74.60 closely:
The data calendar tonight has a few mid-tier releases in Europe, but the one to watch and move markets will be US CPI for October.