Asia markets have not been able to translate the firm gains on US markets overnight to the region, as the weaker Yen was able to only lift Japanese bourses. The monthly jobs figure in Australia saw the Aussie dollar lift higher strangely enough as the ASX200 was pushed down again. Tonight the focus will be on US Treasuries as yields are now above 3.1% on the 10 year, with initial jobless claims the possible catalyst.
The Shanghai Composite is starting to rollover here, falling 0.5% to finish at 3153 point, again failing to breach resistance at 3200 points. The Hang Seng Index is following a similar path, putting in a small loss after the previous scratch session to finish 0.4% lower at 30991 points. There is some support at the 30700 point level but its tenuous so I’m watching the low moving average for signs of a rollover:
S&P futures are pulling back in response to the poor showing here in Asia, so again watch 2700 points as key support going forward:
Japanese stocks were the the only bright spark as Yen weakened throughout the session. The Nikkei 225 closed 0.5% higher to finish at 22838 points, and while this took back the previous loss, its still unable to get out of its recent sideways funk. The USDJPY pair made a new intra-week high to be almost above the 110.40 level before the City opens, where its on its way to tackling the next line of resistance up at 113:
The ASX200 is slowly forming a double bearish top on the daily charts, unable to make any new highs above the 6150 points level, retracing 0.2% to 6094 points in response to the jobs report. On the other hand the Aussie dollar burst through the 75 handle as it continued its bounce off the bottom of a very wide trend channel on the four hourly chart- but the upside remains limited here:
The economic calendar is relatively quite tonight with US initial jobless claims the only major release on the radar.