by Chris Becker
While volatility took a big upswing in risk markets here in Asia on the Syrian attacks, stocks ended up having a relatively normal session to end the week. The biggest mover were havens like gold, which rocketed above its long held resistance level over $1260USD per ounce:
The Shanghai Composite is up 0.3% to 3292 points as it continues to threaten its own overhead resistance at 3300 points to turn this small rally into a proper breakthrough. The Hong Kong based Hang Seng was less lucky again, falling 0.6% making a new daily low as it remains stuck in a holding pattern on the daily chart:
Japanese stocks did a little better today as the Yen came back a bit versus against USD. The Nikkei closed up 0.3% with the broader Topix up over 0.6% yet both remain stuck at their respective significant support level on the daily charts. The USDJPY pair fell straight down to near terminal support around the 110 handle on the strike news before moderating slightly back up to 111.60 level. Not a good result coming into tonight’s NFP print:
S&P futures slumped on the strike news but have recovered half there losses to steady here at 2348 points before tonights NFP. The area to watch is the intrasession low at 2335 points:
The ASX200 came out of the gates strong, but lost all the gains throughout the session, closing the day down 0.1 % to 5850 points on the money.
The Aussie dollar continues to accelerate its fall in favour here, down to the 75 handle against USD on the four hourly chart as iron ore prices slump as well. Its currently hovering at a new weekly low and if the 75 handle breaks we could see a full retracement to the previous weekly low at 71.50:
The data calendar will focus solely on the US unemployment print but will also have the Trump-Xi summit outcomes and fallout from the Syrian strikes to contend with..