Asian stock markets are selling off in response to the widening delta variant of COVID-19, although local stocks are largely unchanged. Tonight’s OPEC+ meeting is keeping commodity prices volatile while gold remains in yet another holding pattern alongside most other currencies as we await the NFP print on Friday. Bitcoin is shrugging off the continued sovereign crackdowns with price still hovering just below the $35K level:
The Shanghai Composite is falling sharply going into the close, down 0.8% to 3579 points, while the Hang Seng Index is off by nearly 0.9% to almost exactly 29000 points. Japanese stocks are also falling with the Nikkei 225 down 0.8% to close at 28812 points as the USDJPY pair is relatively steady after its previous midweek trend reversal, finding support above four hourly ATR support here:
Australian stocks remain unsettled due to widening COVID lockdowns but the ASX200 put in another scratch session just above 7300 points while the Australian dollar remained quiet but under pressure, breaking below recent four hourly ATR support at the mid 75 level:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are both flat going into the London session with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 showing price wanting to keep climbing and head onwards and upwards to 4300 points:
The economic calendar includes OPEC+ meeting, German inflation and the latest US redbook.