by Chris Becker
Asian stock markets have again had a mixed session following yesterday’s faltering start the trading week with a mid session reversal of risk taking as the gold/silver/Bitcoin speculative nexus suddenly reversed their bubble like ascent. Gold almost hit $2000 on the spot price while Bitcoin made a new yearly high. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite was up more than 1% before the lunch break and is now trailing off into the close to only be up a handful of points to 3216, while in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index has rebounded nearly 0.4% to 24707 points.
Japanese stocks have slipped again with the Nikkei 225 closing 0.2% lower to 22657 points. The USDJPY pair came back slightly at the mid session to the mid 105 level but is looking tenous here even though the weak USD meme maybe flipping in the short term:
The ASX200 was above the 6100 point level earlier in the session but sold off swiftly towards the close to almost break below the 6000 point psychological level finally finishing 0.3% lower to 6020 points. The Australian dollar re-engaged above the 71 handle alongside gold, almost breaking its previous weekly high just below 72 cents but slipped in afternoon trade alongside all the undollars:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are relatively calm with the former only up 0.1% or so with the latter still looking weak here just above key support at the 3200 point level. Wall Street remains poised here and bears (sic) watching for any further falls below that level this week:
