A much better day for Asian stock markets as concerns over the US Federal Reserves long-awaited tapering of its QE program have abated, with gains across the region. The USD remains relatively strong against the other majors, with Pound Sterling in particular looking very weak going into tonight’s BOE meeting while gold is under a lot of pressure after successive failures to get back above the $1800USD per ounce level. Meanwhile Bitcoin is barely holding after a violent overnight session, sitting just above the $63K level but still below the previous record high which could be turning into resistance here:
Chinese shares are rebounding despite the property bond market troubles with the Shanghai Composite lifting more than 0.6%, currently at 3525 points while the Hang Seng Index has gained nearly 0.3% as it tries to stave off a larger sell-off, closing at 25083 points. Japanese markets are also in rebound mode with the Nikkei 225 putting on nearly 1% to close at 29794 points this time helped only a little by the USDJPY pair which is trying to get back to its start of week position just above the 114 handle:
Australian stocks had a solid session to get the ASX200 back above the 7400 point level, lifting nearly 0.5% to 7427 points, helped along by a lower Australian dollar that has given up all its overnight gains to almost cross below the 74 level against USD:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are fairly flat but still quite bullish going into the London session with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 showing ready to advance ever further after pushing aside the 4600 point psychological level and fears over the Fed taper from last night’s FOMC meeting:
The economic calendar will focus squarely on the BOE meeting tonight, with US trade balance and initial weekly jobless claims thereafter.