Risk was again off today here in Asia despite several closed markets for the May Day holidays with the Sell in May meme in full swing as European futures are down over 3% going into the London open. US/China trade relations are the main headline to blame, but there’s plenty of others like profit taking and the inability to breach key resistance levels on global stock markets. Euro gapped down significantly this morning, almost crossing the 1.09 handle and wiping out half the gains from Friday night:
Mainland Chinese share markets were closed again but the Hang Seng Index reopened and is currently down nearly 4%, making a new weekly low and wiping out all of the recent buying intent, crossing below the key support level at 23000 points:
Japanese share markets are closed through to Wednesday with trading in the USDJPY pair obviously weak here and largely unchanged from the snapback rally on Friday night:
The ASX200 had a strange day given the Westpac result and the overall risk off mood, but a lower Aussie dollar maybe to blame for the inversion as it actually closed some 1.4% higher to 5319 points, making a small dent in its big slump on Friday. The Aussie dollar fell below the 64 handle at the open but has stopped selling for now, although momentum is ready to accelerate here to the downside:
Eurostoxx futures are off by more than 3% while S&P futures are down at least 1% going into the London with the four hourly chart of the latter showing how the mid week highs near the 3000 point level are being taken away and then some as the medium term trendline is decisively broken:
