A relatively upbeat start to the week here in Asia following what was a dour finish on Friday night on Wall Street. In China markets however are flat but elsewhere, weaker domestic currencies are supporting an eager start with the ASX200 the standout.
The Shanghai Composite is barely up after the lunch break, hanging on 2595 points still below the previous support level at 2600 points but navigating through the weekend gap problem well. The Hang Seng Index is similarly unchanged, up a handful of points to 26112, matching the weak session from Friday as it travels sideway after a failed breakout from last week:
US and Eurostoxx futures are up about 0.3% going into the London open, with the daily S&P 500 futures chart showing how important it is for US markets to pick up this week as they start to broach bear market territory:
Japanese stocks have rebounded with the Nikkei 225 lifting 0.7% to recover a small margin of its big falls on Friday, currently at 21535 points bouncing off support at 21000 proper. The USDJPY pair gapped higher this morning but has settled down at the mid 113s as it tries again to get back to its previous two weekly high above 113.80 or so:
The ASX200 however has recovered all its Friday losses, up about 1% to 5658 points, bouncing off terminal support at 5600 points, as traders get nervous going into the long Christmas break. The Aussie dollar has been quiet all day, still below the 72 handle and looking very weak going into the FOMC meeting:
The economic calendar starts the week slowly with a few housing figures in the US plus the usual Treasury auctions.