Things were looking up for stocks here in Asia today but most bourses ended up in the red as other risk markets remain in a holding pattern waiting for the Fed to make its next move. The USD remains super strong against all the majors with Euro and Pound Sterling still under a lot of pressure and almost back to their previous weekly low. Oil markets are steady with Brent crude still indicating a $105USD per barrel level price while gold is still under the pump, unchanged but weak at the $1864USD per ounce level, as daily momentum remains highly negative:
Mainland Chinese share markets were closed again for a holiday while the Hang Seng Index slumped at the close, finishing 1% lower at 20859 points. Japanese stock markets were also closed for yet another holiday while the USDJPY pair reflects that lack of trading action with a continuation of its symmetrical triangle pattern on the four hourly chart as it hovers above the 130 level:
Australian stocks started off well enough, shooting up 50 points or so before selling off throughout the day, with the ASX200 losing just over 0.1% to finish at 7304 points. Meanwhile the Australian dollar is very very slowly rising again after its overnight move down to the 71 handle, with almost no change now registered after yesterday’s rate rise by the RBA. There remains the potential to push a little higher to last week’s high just before the Federal Reserve kicks all of this down again – at around the 71.70 level (upper horizontal black line):
Eurostoxx and Wall Street futures are barely moving with the S&P500 four hourly chart showing price wanting to get out of this bottom pattern with the potential to breakout above the high moving average at around the 4200 point level, but its very steady as she goes so far:
The economic calendar has some final PMI figures in Europe although the latest US non manufacturing PMI print could be a potential catalyst before we get the Fed meeting tomorrow morning.