A sea of red across Asia today as risk markets absorb the latest Putin chess moves as he starts to lebensraum the hell out of Ukraine, sending energy prices higher as Brent approaches $100USD per barrel. Currency markets are relatively stable although the usual safe havens are getting bid higher while Bitcoin is failing to stabilise again, currently just below the $37K level while gold remains above the $1900USD per ounce level but it maybe transitory as momentum is extremely overbought:
Mainland Chinese shares are down sharply going into the close with the Shanghai Composite losing 1% to 3454 points while the Hang Seng Index had a shocker, losing nearly 3% to 23483 points. Japanese stock markets also lost their cool with the Nikkei 225 finishing 1.7% lower to close at 26449 points, while the USDJPY pair remains weak but stable below the 115 handle as we head into the London trade with safe haven buying in Yen pausing for now:
Australian stocks didn’t escape the carnage with the ASX200 losing 1% to finish at 7161 points while the Australian dollar remains just above the 72 handle, still coming up against a lot of resistance overhead as it remains unable to clear the previous weekly high against USD:
Eurostoxx and Wall Street futures are in a fix with the latter probably gapping down 1-1.5% given the missed session overnight with the S&P500 four hourly chart showing price looking extremely oversold here below the previous support/resistance zone and crumbled below the key psychological 4400 point level that was broken last week, with a major correction brewing:
The economic calendar continues with the German IFO survey followed by US consumer confidence and flash manufacturing PMI prints, but all eyes will remain on eastern Europe tonight.