Quite a mixed trading session to end the week here in Asia, with Japanese stocks soaring while Chinese bourses are relatively steady following a late surge on Wall Street overnight. A much stronger USD is no longer weighing on risk markets although major currencies are still in the doldrums, with only gold hanging on to its recent uptrend. Bitcoin continues to stall after its recent flameout and is not looking pretty here going into the weekend, with the four hourly chart looking droopy at best:
The Shanghai Composite is treading water going into the close to remain just above 3600 points while the Hang Seng Index is up 0.6% to be at 29292 points. Japanese stocks are the stars with the Nikkei 225 about to close more than 2% higher at 29153 points as Yen is sold off tremendously against USD. The USDJPY pair is holding to its overnight gains, currently moving towards the 110 handle even though its extremely overbought:
The ASX200 is putting in a solid session to finish the week, up more than 1% so far at 7178 points, while the Australian dollar is still very weak here, unable to break back above the mid 77 cent level versus the USD:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are moving higher going into the open with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 showing price wanting to get past the barrier around the 4200 point level after previously gravitating around the intrasession high from last week:
The economic calendar finishes the week with EZ wide and US consumer sentiment figures, plus the closely watched core PCE inflation print in the US later tonight.
Have a good weekend, stay safe and “enjoy” your lockdown again Melbourne….