Its all systems go in risk markets here in Asia today as the solid night on Wall Street translated into outsized gains for stocks. The falling USD helped, even though Yen made another high it didn’t drag down Japanese markets as expected. Chinese markets were closed for the New Year celebrations.
S&P futures are up firmly in response to the Asian market rise. The indication is an open above the 2700 point level which means more late comers to the buying party:
Japanese stocks finally rebounded even as Yen firmed with the Nikkei 225 closing 1.4% higher to 21445 points. This still leaves it in a tight spot without a new daily high since the correction, so I’m looking at 22000 points as natural resistance to get over. The USDJPY pair continues its overnight slump falling well below the 106 handle as it looks like parity is on its way:
The ASX200 finally broke above the 5900 points level, lifting over 1% to 5909 helped along mainly by the iron ore trifecta. BHP was up over 4.5%, Fortescue nearly 6% while RIO pipped above 4% or so. The Aussie dollar continues to push higher but is slowly losing momentum here above the 79 handle:
The economic calendar is relatively quiet but there is weekly US initial jobless claims.