by Chris Becker
Asian markets are taking it steady at the end of a volatile week, with Japanese stocks the only ones with runs on the board as the Chinese bond and Yuan slides paused briefly. The USD remains strong against, well everything, while only oil is putting on gains, stabilising around the $50USD per barrel level on the WTI contract.
The Shanghai Composite broke below key support yesterday and is currently down a little as the lunch break starts, at 3116 points. Unless it rallies past 3140 points between now and the close, the next level to reach will be slightly stronger support at 3000 points. The Hang Seng is doing better – just – up 0.1% but also dicing with its own key support level at 22000 points:
In Japan, the Nikkei and Topix are up 0.7% or so even as Yen remains stable against USD after its post Fed meeting blowup. The USDJPY pair is consolidating with a pennant pattern on the hourly chart right on the 118 handle, so expect a breakout either side – likely to the upside:
S&P Futures are slowly coming back in a low volume Friday Asian trade. I’m still watching the higher moving average here at 2255 or so for signs of real life:
The ASX200 is treading water going into the close, having spiked before lunch but on return, the boozed up cricket watching traders pressed the sell button instead. Its currently down 0.1% at 5534 points.
The Aussie dollar is also licking its wounds, going nowhere and sitting below 74 cents again, not making any new hourly lows at least:
The data calendar ends the week with EZ wide CPI for November, switching to US housing starts and an oil rig count.
Haveagoodweekend!