A somewhat solid start to risk taking here in Asia as we start another trading week with stock markets not reacting to the falls on Wall Street on Friday night, while the USD remains relatively strong against risk currencies despite some lifts in commodities. Gold is struggling to get back above the $1800USD level, while Bitcoin is weakening again following weekend trade with a drop below the $45K level, having found no support:
The Shanghai Composite is putting in a solid finish, remaining above the 3700 point level, up 0.3% to 3715 points while the Hang Seng Index has fallen completey out of bed, taking back all of its Friday gains and then some, off by more than 2% to finish at 25659 points. Japanese stocks continued their epic runup though with the Nikkei 225 finishing 0.2% higher to 30447 points, helped by a much weaker Yen as the USDJPY pair gaps higher after the weekend:
Australian stocks were able to stave off another selloff with the ASX200 eventually finishing 0.25% higher at 7425 points while the Australian dollar failed to find support and broke below the 74 handle, continuing its selloff from Friday night:
Eurostoxx futures are flat while S&P futures are coming back sharply as we head into the London open, with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 showing price wanting to recover its deep dive on Friday night as it broke well below the 4500 point level. Wait for the BTFD crowd to step in soon:
The economic calendar is pretty empty tonight, as Tuesday will be the big one with UK unemployment and US inflation to dominate.