Heading into the end of the trading week, risk markets are falling out of bed due to the latest COVID variant news, with Asian stock markets heavily sold off and USD bid up strongly, although Yen safe haven bidding is also gathering pace. Gold has broken out somewhat, although this has been overshadowed by other risk off events and is currently just shy of the $1800USD per ounce level while Bitcoin has rolled over to be under the $58K level as daily resistance overhead as proven too hard to beat in the latest dead cat bounce:
Chinese shares are selling off everywhere with the Shanghai Composite down more than 0.5% lower at 3566 points while the Hang Seng Index is being sold off very sharply indeed, down over 2% to 24213 points. Japanese markets are having the worst time however, with the Nikkei 225 currently down nearly 3% at 28633 points with the USDJPY pair sharply inverting on the risk off move, seeing Yen bid off strongly with the pair back below its recent historic high at the 114.70 level:
Australian stocks couldn’t escape the carnage with the ASX200 currently down 1.7% to be at 7281 points as the Australian dollar has bounced off the diving board again, cracking well below the 72 level to the low 71’s making yet another monthly low:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are down sharply to almost new weekly lows going into the London open with momentum switching to oversold as overseas markets react to the virus news. The S&P500 four hourly chart shows price heading back to the previous weekly lows at the 4650 point level with support very close below:
The economic calendar finishes the week with a whimper, just a few ECB speeches and not much else.