Steady as she goes for risk markets here in Asia, with stocks largely unchanged except locally with the ASX200 continuing its pre-holiday selloff. All eyes are on overnight stock markets to see if momentum can be refound with the Bank of England meeting later tonight alongside the latest initial jobless claims from the US. Currency markets are seeing some weakness returning to the USD while gold has been unable to translate that into any gains as we go into the London session, with Bitcoin also on the downer and now below the $33K level:
The Shanghai Composite is dead flat at 3566 points, while the Hang Seng Index is lifting slightly going into the close, up 0.2% to 28881 points. Japanese stocks volatility has now completely disappeared with yet another scratch session today on the Nikkei 225, closing at 28874 points as the USDJPY pair stalls out just as it reaches the 111 handle but is still past the previous weekly high:
Australian stocks continue to pullback due to further COVID restrictions with the ASX200 falling back another 0.3% to 7275 points as the Australian dollar remained quiet but elevated, trying to get past the 76 handle and heading up to overhead resistance on the four hourly chart:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are retracing slightly as risk expectations taper off slightly with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 showing price wanting to get back to the previous correction high nearer the 4250 point level. Having cleared previous resistance at the 4230 point level from last week this is the obvious target above but momentum is not yet there:
The economic calendar ramps up significantly tonight with the latest BOE meeting, the German IFO survey and then US durable goods orders for May along with the latest initial jobless claims.