Today’s session in Asia was marked (sic) with a lot of markdowns to GDP growth across the region in the wake of the coronavirus, with Japanese and Australian economies expected to feel the brunt the most in the first quarter. Asian stocks however are quite mixed with Chinese markets rallying on potential stimulus from the PBOC, while Japanese bourses fell the most on their slump in preliminary 4Q GDP results. Gold has advanced while Bitcoin gapped nearly a thousand dollars lower to start Monday well below its recent highs.
The Shanghai Composite is bouncing back with a solid 1.6% gain today, up through to 2964 points while the Hang Seng Index is up 0.6% or so to 28000 points exactly. The recent break out above the high moving average on the daily chart continues its follow through here, but requires a break through firm resistance at the 28000 point level above, as momentum is still not yet positive:
Japanese share markets continued their falls with the Nikkei 225 losing another 0.5% to 23534 points, on the back of the poor GDP print. The USDJPY pair remained below the 110 level on the open despite a small gap higher and has barely moved throughout the session:
The ASX200 put in a scratch session to start the week, barely moving to finish at 7125 points, remaining well above the 7100 barrier. The Australian dollar gapped higher however, bouncing off a small support level just above the 67 handle against USD, but still in a dominant downtrend:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are up slightly, although the latter is determinate given they will be closed tonight with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 showing a nascent bearish rising wedge pattern that is likely to be ignored:
The economic calendar is relatively quiet tonight with only a few tertiary level releases, with US markets closed for President’s Day.