Outside Australia, it’s been a good day for stock markets across the region with currency markets relatively quiet leading up to an important speech by Fed Chair Powell tonight, which is likely to involve some twitter dribbling in response from Trump.
The Shanghai Composite is up 0.7% to 2592 points going into the close, perhaps finally making some traction to get back above key support at the 2600 point level. The Hang Seng Index is up further, around 0.9% to 26559 points, still building above the previous support level at 26000 points as the the daily chart is starting to stabilize:
US and Eurostoxx futures are up with the four hourly S&P 500 futures chart showing a continued breakout above trailing ATR resistance at 2675 points or so, but there’s really no sunshine until the 2700 or higher level is breached for confidence to spill back in:
Japanese stocks have put in another solid day, again helped by a much weaker Yen, as the Nikkei 225 closed nearly 1% higher to 22191 points. The USDJPY pair continues its upward recovery after a mild pause overnight, now barreling in on the 114 handle to in a very overbought trajectory:
The ASX200 was the only loser in the region, basically treading water to close at 5725 points, still above the previous 5700 point support area, so it’s not all bad news. The Aussie dollar has blipped higher after a solid retracement overnight with a surge back up to the 72.30 level, but this is looking weak going into the City open:
The economic calendar has several important releases to watch tonight, namely 3Q GDP for the US., the advanced goods trade balance plus the weekly DOE oil inventory report and a speech by Fed Chair Powell.