A volatile day for local stocks while other Asian bourses were very unsteady following the broad gains on Wall Street overnight. We’re still in bear market territory, so oscillations of this kind are not to be unexpected. USD firmed against Yen but both Kiwi and Aussie remain resilient while gold slipped a little in late trade.
Chinese stocks are the only ones advancing with the Shanghai Composite currently up 0.2% to 2743 points while the Hang Seng Index is up 0.6% or so to 23310 points, still unable to keep above above its high moving average on the daily chart and looking tenuous to say the least:
Japanese share markets had modest falls despite a similar weakness in Yen with the Nikkei 225 closing 0.9% lower to remain well below the 19000 point level. The USDJPY pair had a small sniff at some upside action by breaking back above the 108 handle but has paused in afternoon trade before the City open:
The ASX200 had a wild day, up over 3% at one point before a sharp selloff throughout this afternoon saw it take that back, plus a little more, eventually closing 2% lower to 5076 points as “insert excuse here”. Quarterly/month end rebalancing? Bots gone wild? Too many smart traders piling up on BEAR and BBOZ ETFs? Cough… Meanwhile the Aussie dollar is hurriedly going nowhere, stuck above the mid 61s as it looks set to complete a rounding top pattern:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures were advancing but have stalled here at the previous resistance levels, namely 2600 for the S&P500, with its four hourly futures chart about to complete a double top pattern:
The economic calendar includes the latest German unemployment print and then US house prices. And then your latest Bible reading from the White House. No thoughts, just prayers.