Asian markets are putting in scratch sessions across the board as jubilation about the US/China trade deal turns into hesitation instead. The USD is not moving against the majors, with Yen buying accelerating and putting a damper on risk assets.
The Shanghai Composite has been unable to advance significantly past the long held 3000 point resistance level, lifting only 0.1% to 3027 points, while the Hang Seng Index is similarly unchanged and unable to beat it previous October highs, closing a handful of points higher at 27851:
Japanese share markets have been pulled back by a stronger Yen throughout the session, pushing the Nikkei 225 down almost 0.6% lower to 23939 points. The USDJPY pair is coming up against strong resistance at the former weekly highs above the 109.70 level and has been pushed back almost to its Friday night lows, taking the wind out of domestic stocks:
The ASX200 was the final wet blanket in the region with yet another scratch result to finish at 6851 points, still short of a new record high while the Aussie dollar floated along at the mid 68 cent level against USD, still setting up for a selloff tonight:
Both S&P and Eurostoxx futures are flat going into the European open with the S&P500 four hourly chart showing price wanting to get to the next level of 3200 points, but momentum is diverging away so the BTFD crowd should step in soon to see the Santa rally continue:
The economic calendar has two bigly events tonight, namely ECB President Lagarde talking in Frankfurt, then the latest UK CPI print, just after what could be an equally important German IFO survey result.