Macro Afternoon

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Asian stock markets are somewhat mixed given the stumble on Wall Streets return from a long weekend overnight, with overextended Japanese stocks falling back the most as expected while mainland Chinese risk markets remained closed for NY holidays. Bitcoin has again briefly touched the magical $50K level, as is trails ever higher ready for a proper breakout as nothing can stop this bubble:

The Shanghai Composite remains closed but the Hang Seng Index surged again, this time over 1.3%, currently at 31094 points while Japanese markets have finally pulled back from their bubble, with the Nikkei 225 finishing 0.6% lower at 30293 points. The USDJPY pair has done a similar pullback, after a way overextended and overbought move after bouncing off the mid 104 level late last week, now back below the 106 level but really unchanged:

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The ASX200 was also in sell mode with a modest loss of only 0.5% to close at just below the 6900 point level with the Australian dollar still looking a bit deflated here at the mid 77’s after the recent reversal of USD weakness, but still at a two week high:

Eurostoxx and S&P futures are tracking sideways going into the London session, with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 in hesitation mode still as Wall Street tries to regain some lost confidence over the weekend with the clear breakout above the 3900 point level still wanting to extend into a possible 4000 point break soon:

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The economic calendar ramps up again tonight with US retail sales for January, plus the latest FOMC minutes.