Macro Afternoon

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A mixed day here in Asia which is better than red across the baord with Japanese stocks leading the way, pulling along local shares as the USD recovered slightly. The Chinese CPI print picked up slightly as the PBOC signalled its intend on defending the major 7 handle on the Yuan against USD, with the official fix pulling back slightly.

The Shanghai Composite was struggling after the lunch break after being steady most of the session but finally closed down 0.8% at 2546 points, key support at the 2600 level a distant memory. The Hang Seng Index fell about half as much, down 0.4% to 25335 points, still well below its previous support level at 26000 points and looking quite depressed:

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S&P and Eurostoxx futures are flat due to the mixed nature of risk here in Asia with the four hourly S&P 500 chart still painting a bearish descending triangle here with support critical at the 2750 level:

Japanese stocks have been able to recover somewhat as Yen sold off slightly throughout the session, with the Nikkei 225 rising 1.2% to close at 22549 points. The USDJPY pair is slowly coming back, tracing just above the 112 handle but still within a solid downtrend:

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The ASX200 has bounced slightly, up nearly 0.6% to close at 5869 points, trying to get back on track but held back by the banks. The Aussie dollar fell slightly, but still remains above the 71 handle, as it rejected short term resistance at 71.30 or so on the four hourly chart, with momentum waning here:

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The economic calendar has the German ZEW sentiment survey to watch closely tonight.