Yet another mixed day here in Asia as tensions rise once again on the Korean peninsula and the impact of higher US interest rates from the spike in Treasury yields is felt across risk markets. Only the ASX200 put in a positive session with gold putting in a small rebound from its sharp selloff overnight.
The Shanghai Composite could not get a good start and stayed in the red the whole session, again failing to breach the next resistance level at 3200 points, off by nearly 0.7% to finish at 3167 points. The Hang Seng Index almost finished in the green but came away with a scratch session to finish only a few points lower to 31135 points, finding some intrasession support at the recent daily lows after rejecting the trailing daily ATR resistance line:
S&P futures are steady after last night’s pullback with 2700 points remaining key support going forward:
Japanese stocks were pushed down as Yen strengthened throughout the session. The Nikkei 225 closed down 0.4% to finish at 22717 points, still unable to get out of its recent sideways funk.. The USDJPY pair came back to the 110 handle proper after being way overbought night in what looks like a normal pullback before tackling the next line of resistance up at 113:
The ASX200 had the best session in the region, finishing 0.15% higher at 6106 points, but still unable to make a new high from previous attempts. The Aussie dollar came back as expected, almost hitting the 75 handle as it bounces off the bottom of a very wide trend channel on the four hourly chart, that is actually signalling a bearish reversal on the dailies:
The economic calendar continues tonight with only one major event to note, a speech by ECB Prez Mario Draghi in Frankfurt.