Macro Afternoon

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A much better than expected start to the trading week here in Asia with the PBOC keeping the Yuan very weak, still well above the 7 handle against USD, with most stock markets putting in light rises or scratch sessions.

The Shanghai Composite has finally found some momentum, jumping over 1.2% to 2808 points while the Hang Seng Index is just hanging on to a scratch session, currently at 25944 points. This keeps it above the January lows at 25000 points but even a cursory glance at the daily chart shows it remains in trouble with very poor momentum:

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Japanese share markets are closed for yet another holiday, which is probably good given the big bids in Yen with the USDJPY pair remaining well below the 106 handle, dragging the AUDJPY with it. The bearish descending triangle pattern on the four hourly chart broke on Friday night with the next target at the longer term level nearer 104:

The ASX200 is also just treading water, closing a handful of points higher with no news or impetus to take on risk to start the week well, closing 0.1% higher at 6590 points, still unable to breach the 6600 barrier. The Australian dollar is steady against USD but remains elevated versus NZD and dropping against Yen, giving FX traders something to do I guess!

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S&P and Eurostoxx futures are up around 0.8% or so with the S&P500 four hourly chart still showing the potential to breakout above the 2930 point zone after stabilising somewhat which could turn this away from being a dead cat bounce:

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The economic calendar begins the week very slowly with the usual Treasury auctions and not much else.