Macro Afternoon

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Asian stocks didn’t perform as badly as predicted, still losing ground but not in the magnitude of the falls on Wall Street and the continent overnight. The falls in the antipodean currencies – Aussie and Kiwi – were mitigated this morning while oil looks like finding a potential bottom after the bath of blood from overnight.

The Shanghai Composite is up a few points to 2648 points going into the close, hanging on despite the falls in other markets. The Hang Seng Index is down ever so slightly, about 0.1% or so to 25812 points, still below the previous support level at 26000 points but at least not making a substantial new daily low:

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US and Eurostoxx futures are up slightly with the four hourly S&P 500 futures chart showing a potential bounce iff of the previous week’s low at the 2680 level. But this is tentative in the extreme:

Japanese stocks have fallen but not as much as feared with a selloff in Yen helping, the Nikkei 225 closing only 0.35% lower to 21546 points. The USDJPY pair is lifting strongly here after being considerably oversold, almost breaching the 112 handle but has now closed above the high moving average on the four hourly chart, with some resistance at the 113 handle coming in:

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The ASX200 is off the worst, down 0.5% or so to 5642 points, still following through on its inability to finish last week back above the 5700-5800 point support area. The Aussie dollar has bounced back ever so slightly after last night’s rout, taking it back to previous resistance, now support at the 72.30 level :

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The economic calendar has quite a few important releases to watch tonight, starting with the OECD European outlook, followed by the latest US durable goods orders. There’s also a DOE crude oil report that could pitch the failing oil price down even further.