A resurgence of COVID cases across the region is weighing on Asian stocks despite record highs on Wall Street overnight. Bitcoin has failed in getting back its weekend gains with a full retracement of this week’s gains, now at the $33K level while gold is retracing back below the $1800USD per ounce after its overnight surge was thwarted:
The Shanghai Composite is taking back all of its previous gains, down over 0.8% to be at 3523 points while the Hang Seng Index has broken down, now off by more than 2.5% at 27250 points. Japanese stocks continue to fallback as well as COVID hits the Olympics, with the Nikkei 225 closing 0.7% lower at 28118 points as the USDJPY pair continues its descent as Yen safe haven buying accelerates:
Australian stocks are the only good news in the region with the ASX200 closing 0.2% higher as it advances well past the 7300 point level. Meanwhile the Australian dollar is continuing its risk off move lower, now matching the previous weekly lows at the mid 74 level as commodity prices play catchup:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are struggling to gain momentum with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 pointing to a return to trailing ATR support at the 4300 point level that could really open up a risk off event although it seems to be contained here in Asia:
The economic calendar has the German trade balance, US initial weekly jobless claims and then private oil data.