Asian stock markets are starting the new calendar month in a somewhat bullish fashion, as the end of month rebalancing and resetting of daylight savings on overseas markets is not holding back risk taking in the region. A comfortable win for the ruling party in Japan over the weekend has seen local shares surge as the Yen sold off on more fiscal promises, while USD remains relatively strong against the other majors, with gold still unable to climb back above the $1800USD per ounce level. Meanwhile Bitcoin is trying to get some traction but remains under a lot of resistance here, hovering just below the $61K level as it proves completely unable to burst back above the previous and record high:
Chinese shares are again mixed with divergent fortunes as the Shanghai Composite puts on 0.2% during the afternoon session, currently at 3554 points while the Hang Seng Index is down nearly 1% as it continues its rollover from last week, currently at 25123 points. Japanese markets have rebounded sharply on the election with the Nikkei 225 shooting more than 2.5% higher to close at 29615 points, helped by the USDJPY pair which has put in a new weekly high to be slightly above the 114 barrier that it tried to climb all of last week:
Australian stocks had a very solid session, but the ASX200 was only able to clawback about half of its Friday losses, finishing 0.6% higher to remain below the 7400 point level, while the Australian dollar continued its little deflationary move lower to rest right on the 75 handle, as traders gear up for tomorrows RBA meeting:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are flat going into the new calendar month but the four hourly chart of the S&P500 shows price wanting to build again as it pushes past the 4600 point psychological level and twirl ever higher to freedom:
The economic calendar starts the week with German retail sales for September and US manufacturing PMI prints for October.