The mixed start to the trading week for Asian stock markets continued with most bourses going nowhere, while Japanese share markets reopened with some large losses even as Yen continues to soften against USD. The USD remains very strong against most of the major currency pairs with Euro and Pound Sterling still at weekly lows while gold has been unable to climb back above the $1800USD per ounce level. Bitcoin too remains under a lot of pressure with a coil of volatility here suggesting an imminent breakout as crypto bans are starting to make waves against sentiment:
Chinese shares are finally moving in the same direction with the Shanghai Composite closing 0.1% higher at 3593 points while the Hang Seng Index has bounced back to be up 0.6% to close at 24815 points. Japanese markets returned from their holiday with the Nikkei 225 slumping more than 1.5% to close at 29302 points with the USDJPY pair retracing ever so slightly back from above the 115 handle:
Australian stocks were relatively listless with the ASX200 falling about 0.15% to close at 7399 points as the Australian dollar is still going nowhere, floating along just above the 72 level after previously making a new weekly and monthly low:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are moderately rising going into the London open with momentum still oversold but possibly inverting here with the S&P500 four hourly chart showing price stabilizing after briefly touching the previous weekly low:
The economic calendar is US centric overnight with the latest durable goods orders, 2Q GDP estimate and core inflation price index results.