by Chris Becker
Its a steady start to the week as traders digest the weekend news that financial regulation in the ‘States will be wound back as part of the Trump’s administration (mostly full of Goldman Sachs and other banksters) attempt to goose the golden economy. This is pushing financials up everywhere, including locally, while gold itself is up to $1222USD per ounce.
The Shanghai Composite is currently up 0.5% to 3152 points trying to build momentum and find buyers after a long Chinese new year holiday. The Hang Seng Index is doing only slightly better, up 0.6% and getting back above 23000 points as its own bear market rally tries to breakout once more:
Japanese stocks are barely moving with the Nikkei putting in a scratch session up only a few points to still close below key support at 19000 points as the Yen maintains strength against USD. The four hourly chart for USDJPY shows the intact downtrend, hovering at terminal support at 112.50:
S&P Futures are mixed, falling at the open but now coming back in anticipation to Friday nights close. As I mentioned this morning, the late week comeback needs to follow through the previous week’s high at 2298 before getting too excited here:
Confidence remains short locally, with the ASX200 falling 0.2% into the close at 5612 points, led mainly by mining and other commodity stocks with BHP off 1.4% although Newcrest is up 2% on the surging gold price. Financials are surprisingly good with most of the banks up 0.5% to 1%, its the broader market that’s down
The Aussie dollar is only slightly off its Friday night highs against USD, currently at the 76.70 level. Support at the 76.40 level is critical here as you can see on the hourly chart below going into tomorrows RBA meeting as everyone is calling a hold:
The data calendar starts the week slowly with German retail figures of January tonight before pivoting to Super Mario giving a speech in Brussels and not much going on in the ‘States.