by Chris Becker
A very positive start to the trading week with all Asian share markets up strongly, absorbing the usual weekend volatility well – excepting Bitcoin, of course. Ahead of the Federal Reserve and ECB meeting this week, the positive NFP on Friday night gave risk takers the green light to bid up all risk assets today.
In mainland China the Shanghai Composite has climbed back above key support at 3300 points, up 0.7% to be at 3312 points going into the close. This is promising so far given the lack of a new daily low since it broke below last week, so maybe its a false sunset? The Hang Seng Index is also positive, up about the same to 28851 points. The daily chart here is similar to the SSEC, with a bounce off the daily lows above the 28000 level turning into a proper swing move higher to 29000:
S&P futures are slowly melting higher, with the potential to get back to last Monday’s starting point:
Japanese stocks again lifted on the negative Yen, with the Nikkei closing nearly 0.4% higher to 22893 points. The USDJPY pair is remaining well above the 113 handle after its new weekly high previously. Momentum is slightly overcooked going into the Fed meeting, but I think support is quite firm here at the 112.70 to 113.20 area:
The ASX200 wanted to but could start the week with a close above 6000 points (I think everyone is watching the intraday Bitcoin charts!) but just missed out, closing 0.1% higher to 5998 points. Blame the banks as all save CBA dragged the index down while commodity stocks were relatively stable.
The Aussie dollar might be finally finding a bottom here after falling most of last week, still clinging on to support slightly above the 75 handle against USD. This is still below November low at the 75.40 level and I still think a full retracement back to 73.50 or lower is possible, but I’m watching the high moving average at 75.40 or so for a breakout sign:
The data calendar starts the week with a whimper with the usual round of Treasury auctions and not much else before it ramps up later tomorrow night.