Outside Australia, its a sea of red across stock markets as risk absorbs the Trump “how I colluded with Russia” questionnaire alongside Chinese traders that came back to work after two days to absorb a much stronger USD. Its a key day on the economic calendar with the Fed meeting later tonight alongside continued earnings reports from US stocks.
The Shanghai Composite reopened today and is basically steady, only down a few points going into the close at 3080 points. The Hang Seng Index is down 0.25% to 30727 points with the daily chart showing a bearish triangle forming around this level, ready for a breakout:
S&P futures are up only slightly as traders continue to be cautious coming into tonights FOMC meeting. The short term 30 minute chart is looking quite bullish here, setting up an inverse head and shoulders pattern, so I’m watching the neckline at the 2666 level closely:
Japanese stocks had another scratch session with the Nikkei 225 taking back its previous gains to be 0.2% lower at 22472 points. The USDJPY pair has taken a breather after last night’s breakout, almost hitting the 110 handle. I’m watching this very closely for tonight’s Fed meeting with the possibility of a downward surprise as the upside has been baked in:
The ASX200 was the bright spark, remaining well over 6000 points, to be up 0.6% to 6050 points. Don’t let a royal commission get in the way of the bulls! The Aussie dollar rebounded after previously slipping to the 75 handle last night in an expected rebound, but it won’t likely have the legs going into tonight, so I’m watching to re-engage shorts here at the 75.40 level:
The economic calendar will be dominated tonight by the conclusion of the FOMC meeting with a possible interest rate rise on the cards. Before that we get a slew of first quarter GDP info from Italy and the EZ and a DOE crude oil inventory report.