Macro Afternoon

Advertisement

A generally positive mood across Asian stock markets in response to the bounceback on Wall Street overnight, although oil prices remain depressed and continue to drag commodity currencies including the Australian down further. This move is likely to be shortlived as the COVID 19 delta variant economic impact has not yet been priced in. Bitcoin had broken below the $30K level and its start of year price level but managed a nice little bounce this afternoon to almost get back to the $31K level but momentum is nowhere near positive as yet:

The Shanghai Composite closed 0.7% higher at 3562 points while the Hang Seng Index couldn’t take a trick, again finishing lower to be down 0.3% to 27178 points. Japanese stocks were able to bounceback after being in near-freefall with the Nikkei 225 closing 0.6% higher at 27548 points as the USDJPY pair remains stuck just below the 110 handle and unable to garner any positive momentum in the short term:

Advertisement

Australian stocks had a solid move higher despite the poor retail sales print, with the ASX200 lifting nearly 0.8% to close just above 7300 points as the Australian dollar remains depressed moving lower and lower, this time cracking through the 73 handle as it absorbs the commodity market selloff and reweighing continues against USD:

Eurostoxx and S&P futures are up 0.2% or so with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 showing price holding on above the 4300 point level but this still looks like a dead cat bounce:

Advertisement

The economic calendar is relatively quiet again tonight with US mortgage applications the only release of note.