by Chris Becker
A do-nothing day in Asia as the RBA held fire in its February rate meeting while stock markets tread water unsure of the ructions emanating from Europe and the US as both sides of the Atlantic continue to move to a populist beat upsetting “the world order”. With little to go on in terms of economic data and with Trump asleep and not tweeting there’s been no real catalyst in the Asian session to get excited about as European traders head to their desks.
The Shanghai Composite is not doing well after coming back from holidays late last week, now giving up 0.35% to be at 3145 points unable to build momentum and find any buyers as the PBOC kept a steady course today. The Hang Seng Index is only off slightly, down 0.1% but staying above 23000 points as its own bear market rally tries to breakout once more:
Japanese stocks are barely moving again with the Nikkei putting in a scratch session down a few points and still below key support at 19000 points as the Yen weakened ever so slightly against USD. The hourly chart for USDJPY shows an intact downtrend after breaking through terminal support at 112.50 overnight and now bouncing up slightly in a swing long play up the 112 handle proper. This is unlikely to have any legs with firm resistance overhead:
S&P Futures are dead flat, with the mid point of control unchanged at 2285 points or so. There’s still nothing to get excited about with US stocks here until the previous week’s high at 2298 is breached:
The ASX200 gapped down on the open but recovered to finish down only 0.1% into the close at 5621 points, with banks and insurance stocks giving back Monday’s gains. The reaction to the non-move from the RBA was muted to say the least.
The same can’t be said for the Aussie dollar for intraday traders as it fell below recent lows on the 2.30pm release before rallying around 30 pips higher where its sitting now. This is positive going into the London open for today and for the longer term trend:
The data calendar is very quiet tonight, nothing of real note.