Macro Afternoon

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A flat start to the week in currencyland but stocks are poised to build on their recovery gains from last week, even in the absence of trading in China due to the NY celebrations and Wall Street tonight due to President’s Day. Japanese stocks performed the best despite a stronger Yen, while gold and oil prices gapped higher on the Monday morning open.

S&P futures are up slightly after Friday nights gains. I’m watching the worst closing low before the selloff at around 2755 points as the target here but we’ll have to wait til Tuesday as markets are closed tonight:

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Japanese stocks gapped significantly higher, finally breaking the symmetrical triangle pattern to the upside. The Nikkei 225 closed 1.8% higher to 22106 points, getting over natural resistance at 22000 and ready to tackle trailing ATR resistance next at 22600:

The USDJPY pair saw a small amount of strength on the import/export release this morning, but really its a continuation of the short covering exercise from Friday night. I’m watching the high moving average on the four hourly chart carefully to see if it has further momentum, possibly up to the 107 handle:

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The ASX200 had a solid day, rising 0.7% to 5943 points. IT was a broad move higher, helped along by the banks, with the only major stocks dragging being the iron ore trifecta which all slipped. The Aussie dollar didn’t gap for a change, starting where it finished on Friday, but has come back slightly to be just above the 79.20 level. The Pacific Peso is poised here to make further gains if the risk proxy holds alongside commodity and stocks prices, but I would contend the market is waiting on the release of tomorrows RBA February minutes:

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The economic calendar starts the week quietly with the only event of note a speech by BOE Governor Mike Carney for the Pound Sterling watchers.