Macro Afternoon

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Not a positive way to finish the week here in Asia with a broad selloff due to the slowdown in Chinese economic data, with the Aussie and Kiwi falling alongside all the Yen crosses. As markets position for next week’s FOMC meeting, where expectations are for another rate rise, it’s caution across the board due to Trump’s trade war (and added volatility due to his possible incarceration!)

The Shanghai Composite is currently down about 0.5% to 2620 points, still above the previous support level at 2600 points and navigating the poor trifecta of economic prints well. The Hang Seng Index however has slumped, down 1.5% to 26137 points, unable to maintain itself above the high moving average on the daily chart, dashing any hopes of what could be the start of a recovery:

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US and Eurostoxx futures are retreating going into the London open, with the four hourly S&P 500 futures chart falling back to the weekly long downtrend as trailing ATR resistance at the 2700 point level proves far too hard to beat this week:

Japanese stocks put in the worst results in the region with the Nikkei 225 falling 1.8% to 21415 points taking it back to the previous lows and terminal support levels. The USDJPY pair retreated only slightly after peaking last night, back now at the 113.40 level as it still looks to get back to its previous two weekly high above 113.80 or so:

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The ASX200 is off about 1% in a correlated act, falling to 5602 points, barely clinging on above terminal support at 5600 points, wiping out any chance of its nascent recovery. The Aussie dollar fell on the Chinese trifecta of economic releases, falling straight through the 72 handle after slowly building this week to form a classical V-shaped bottom pattern on the four hourly chart:

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The economic calendar finishes the week with US retail sales figures for November, following by a slew of preliminary services and manufacturing PMI prints for December.