Diverging fortunes here in Asia today as Chinese stock markets rallied while re-opened Japanese bourses slumped, catching up to the NY party. Currencies also diverged with a selloff in Yen followed by a gain in Aussie dollar as traders pre-position for tonight’s US unemployment print.
The Shanghai Composite rallied hard from the open to be up 1.4% or so at 2497 points as confidence comes back strongly with possible talk of stimulus. The Hang Seng Index gapped lower on the open again, but this time rallied throughout the session, closing about 1.5% higher to 25445 points. This is still under previous support at 25600 but there is upside potential here:
US and Eurostoxx futures are up slightly going into the London open, with a huge session of economic events to follow tonight. The four hourly S&P 500 futures chart shows price clinging to the lower edge of the moving average channel with significant resistance at the 2500 level and a possible bullish falling wedge pattern:
Japanese stocks finally came back from their extended NY holiday although I’m sure most will have wanted to stay away with the Nikkei 225 falling 2.5% to 19509 points. The USDJPY rallied late in the session to be just above the 108 handle, still less than half way on a comeback from the previous breakdown: 
The ASX200 started off poorly but slowly clawed its way back as a satellite bourse of Chinese stocks, finishing about well and 0.25% lower to 5619 points. The Aussie dollar also rallied ever so slightly and pipped above the 70 handle, hopefully wiping out any memory of yesterday’s flash crash:
The economic calendar concludes the week with the most important event of the month – US unemployment (non-farm payrolls or NFP). Before that though there’s the nearly equally important German unemployment and EZ wide CPI print. An action packed evening!
Have a good weekend, see you all on Monday as I return with Houses’n’Holes coming back as well.