With no progress to report on the US/China trade talks and Trump thankfully still asleep (or his staffer’s have taken away his iPhone) there haven’t been any catalysts to upset markets on the open here in Asia today. The Yuan is depreciating sharply due to the PBOC trying to head off the tariffs while Yen remains relatively stable alongside other undollar assets, with Treasury yields slipping.
The Shanghai Composite has closed 1.2% lower to 2903 points, not a good start to the week given the rout previously. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index is closed for a holiday.
US and Eurostoxx futures are down, the former off by 1% while the latter only slightly with the four hourly chart of the S&P 500 looking very weak here and quite volatile following the Friday session. The key resistance level to beat to turn this around is previous terminal resistance at 2900 points:
Japanese share markets continued their falls, with the Nikkei 225 falling 0.7% to close at 21191 points. The USDJPY pair remains poised here, not making any new lows but also not advancing as the bullish falling wedge pattern has not yet paid off:
Australian stocks start relatively unscathed for the week, with the ASX200 taking back Friday’s session advance to finish 0.2% lower to 6297 points but still remaining in a strong position. The Australian dollar however gapped down immediately on the Monday open, taking back all of Friday’s advance and then declining almost to the previous week’s lows in what looks like a risk off move in response to the poor housing loan data. Watch the 69.60 level closely:
The economic calendar starts the week slowly with a small spread of Treasury auctions and not much else as markets focus on the news and Tweets surrounding the US/China