by Chris Becker
Only Chinese shares are finding serious buyers at the moment as Asian money finds government bonds and gold better prospects instead as volatility and uncertainty continue to boilover.
The Shanghai Composite was positive, up another 0.5% to close at 3188 points and slowly building momentum off of support at 3100 points. The Hang Seng Index is also positive, but only up 0.25% as its current rally starts to find a possibly top here at 23400 points:
Japanese stocks gave back all of yesterdays gains with the Nikkei losing 0.5% to be back below 19000 points even as the Yen weakened a little during the session against the USD. The hourly chart for USDJPY shows a swing up to a resistance zone around the 112 handle but overall the sellers are in charge here with a move up to 112.50 unlikely:
S&P Futures are slowly melting up, rising up above the mid point of control at 2285 points or so, as it heads towards the tentative downtrend from the previous week’s high at 2298 points. There’s only a couple of Fed speeches to worry about tonight and the ever present volatility around the Chief Twit in the White House on his Android phone:
The ASX200 had a wishy washy day, finally closing up 0.2% to 5667 points, even as commodity prices came off the boil. It was mixed across and within all sectors as BHP fell again on its copper mine problems, while financials were very mixed as CBA dropped.
The Aussie dollar is falling in sympathy with the Kiwi as the latter hold fire with rates, but both nations under pressure with their domestic bubble economies. The hourly chart shows significant resistance overhead at the 76.50 level as bullish bets continue to unwind:
The data calendar is again quiet with a few Fed speeches and US initial weekly jobless claims the only things to watch out for.