As the trading week comes to an end, risk sentiment continues to slide here in Asia, with Chinese shares the exception with small lifts on the mainland. The USD is also still firming against most of the majors with gold and silver the exception, the former holding above the $1900USD per ounce level:
The Shanghai Composite is struggling to hold onto a positive result with a scratch effort at 3339 points while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index took back its previous losses to gain over 1% to 24419 points. Japanese stock markets are slipping with the Nikkei 225 falling another 0.3% to close at 23439 points as Yen buying comes back as the USDJPY pair has been unable to bounce back from its early week falls:
The ASX200 also took back its previous gains to fall 0.5% to finish at 6176 points, while the Australian dollar remains depressed and below the 71 handle, still making a new weekly low:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are playing catchup with both up 0.5% or so going into the European open with the S&P500 four hourly chart still struggling to get back above previous short term support at the 3480 point level after being rebuffed at short term resistance at 3500 points:
The economic calendar finished the week with the latest Euro inflation rate for September, while in the US its the latest retail sales and the Michigan consumer sentiment survey.