Macro Afternoon

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A sputtering start to the trading week here in Asia with most stock markets having a bad day, except in China, while currency markets are reacting to Trumps ALL CAPS rant against Iran, sending the USD down. The Yuan has halted in its selloff with the PBOC fix arresting a near week long slide.

The Shanghai Composite is the standout today, up over 1% to build on its Friday solid move higher, closing at 2858 points as it solidifies this move back above former support at 2800 points, suggesting a bottom may now be in place. The Hang Seng Index has followed somewhat, up only 0.3% to 28299, also potentially creating a bottom here on the daily chart at 28000 as it fails to make a lower low for the session, but its far too early to call it:

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S&P futures are up slightly while Eurostoxx are slipping, with the S&P500 four hourly chart suggesting a crawl along trailing ATR just above the 2800 level with Trump posturing probably not going to help on the open:

Japanese stocks finished last week poorly and are getting into trouble to start the week as Yen continues to firm against USD. The Nikkei 225 closed down 1.3% lower at 22397 points, with a reversal quite clear now on the daily chart. The USDJPY pair was pushed below the 111 handle and is right back to where it broke out nearly two weeks ago at the long term weekly downtrend line. Safe haven buying is not helping here as volatility runs higher on trade and now Middle East tensions:

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The ASX200 reacted sharply to the poor lead on Wall Street on Friday night, down nearly 1% today to close at 6227 points, but still respecting support at 6200 points . The Aussie dollar did not follow through much on its own Friday night gains, unable to make a new session high compared to last week, all on the back of external USD weakness:

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The data calendar starts the week slowly with some US house sales data plus a raft of US Treasury auctions.