Macro Afternoon

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Kayaking in the Cook Islands, 2019: Photo by H. Becker

A dour day for risk for Asian stocks, with a sea of red across the region as traders react to the latest COVID economic restrictions. Bitcoin has held above its weekend breakout $19000 level, while gold has found a modicum of buying support and lifted off the floor to be at the $1836USD per ounce level in a possible swing breakout higher:

The Shanghai Composite is down about 0.3% going into the close at 3356 points while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index has followed suit, down nearly 1% at the 26147 point level. Japanese stock markets are also pulling back with the Nikkei 225 closing 0.3% lower at 26635 points while the USDJPY pair is slowly pushing back above both former trailing ATR resistance and the 104 handle after its big roundtrip overnight:

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The ASX200 has taken back its solid start to the week, down 0.4% to 6631 points and still unable to make a move above the 6700 point level, although the latest RBA minutes didn’t help the Australian dollar either, which has sold off after its mild pause overnight, now threatening the 75 handle:

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Eurostoxx and S&P futures are retreating with the latter ready to break below last week’s low as seen on the four hourly chart of the S&P500 as markets price in more risk of no stimulus package from the US Congress (which is the opposite of Progress…) before Christmas:

The economic calendar is again fairly quiet with US industrial production figures for November and some short term T-bill auctions.

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