Asian stocks have started the trading week in mixed fashion yet again, mirroring similar volatility on Wall Street and European bourses from Friday night. Japanese markets fell back slightly while Chinese shares are all over the place, with the local franchise – aka the ASX200 – having a very solid upday. The USD remains relatively firm against most of the risk currencies although gold is coming back slightly, currently at the $1758USD per ounce level, with Bitcoin gapping up after weekend trader, currently just above the $44K level but still short of last weeks high:
The Shanghai Composite is down over 1% going into the close, currently at 3575 points with the Hang Seng Index going the other way, lifting more than 0.5% to 24316 points. Meanwhile Japanese markets are pulling back after an exuberant previous week, with the Nikkei 225 closing flat at 30240 points as the surging USDJPY pair remains poised here on the four hourly chart just above the mid 110 handle after a big surge last week:
Australian stocks had a solid start to the week, with the ASX200 taking back its Friday losses to finish 0.5% higher at 7384 points, but still shy of previous medium term support as the Australian dollar was relatively stable in its weekend gap move, still hovering just below the 73 handle:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are up strongly going into the London open, the former at least 0.9% so we should see a good swing back on European stocks with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 showing price wanting to get past the previous weekly resistance high at the 4470 point level:
The economic calendar starts the week with a few big hitters out the gate, namely a speech by ECB President Lagarde and the fallout from the German elections thereof, followed by the latest US durable goods order print and a slew of speeches from Fed members and the BOE as well.