Macro Afternoon

Advertisement

The solid rebound on Wall Street last night translated into similar gains here in Asia, although a late selloff in China pared gains on the mainland. Yen sold off as well as the need for safe havens abated, with optimism rising in Korea surrounding a surprise trip to China by the North Korean leader. Other currencies were relatively flat including gold while Bitcoin slumped due to the Twitter ban.

The Shanghai Composite closed 0.5% higher to 3150 points, having nearly reached 3200 points earlier in the session as the negative impact of new tariffs abated. The Hang Seng Index was more illustrative of this optimism, finishing 0.8% higher at 30796 points. Support at 30,000 is pretty obvious here on the daily chart but the downside pressure back up at 32000 remains a very heavy weight:

Advertisement

S&P futures are up slightly from last nights epic short filling event as support at the 2600 point level holds, let’s watch the four hourly chart for signs this will actually amount to a proper recovery:

Japanese stocks continued their bounce back, with the Nikkei 225 up 2.6% or a whopping 551 points to finish at 21317 points.This takes it back above prior support at 21000, so do we call the last two sessions a failure pattern break? Rolling resistance and the cluster of previous daily highs at the 21700 points area is the level to watch here:

Advertisement

Yen sold off slightly with the USDJPY pair remaining above the 105 handle in what looks like a short lived short covering exercise, with momentum still negative on the four hourly chart:

Advertisement

The ASX200 had a good session finally in a late afternoon squirt, up 41 points or 0.7% to 5832 points, pipping above the 200 day moving average once more as it bounces above the February lows. The Aussie dollar lost steam as it was unable to clear the 77.50 level overnight, with a potential rollover here at the 77 handle proper:

The economic calendar continues with US house prices and consumer confidence data for March the key release to watch.

Advertisement