by Chris Becker
Asia starts the new week with a rally across all major stock markets in response to the strong NFP print on Friday night in the ‘States. Commodities lifted too with iron ore and oil up, the latter on the bet that OPEC’s meeting this week will be fruitful.
In mainland China the Shanghai Composite has closed up nearly 0.5% higher to 3277 points as it tries again to get up to and breach the next obvious resistance at the 3300 point level. The Hong Kong based Hang Seng Index is up 0.4%, starting the week with a new daily high to advance its rally even further:
The Nikkei was pushed 0.5% higher to be back above the psychological important 20,000 point level as it reacted to the Friday night depreciation in Yen against USD. The USDJPY pair was unchanged on the open in Asia however, still hovering just below 110.70 and not yet breaking out to a new high which would correspond with a breakout in Japanese stocks:
S&P futures are slowly building higher here as market/Twitter/other risks abate:
The ASX200 had a much better start the week with the index the best in the region, up nearly 1% to 5773 points. CBA helped, brushing off its laundering concerns with a 1% rally while iron ore giants BHP, RIO and Fortescue all moved at least 2% higher as iron ore also bounced back.
The Aussie dollar is struggling to find buyers here after the falls on Friday night took it down to the 79.30 level against the USD, where its stayed throughout mots of the session. The 79 handle beckons here:
The data calendar starts the week slowly with just a handful of lower tier releases, German industrial production the only standout tonight.