An uneasy start to the trading week with Asian stocks extending their lack of positive risk sentiment from the Friday session, not helped by the very poor lead from Wall Street as the USD remains very strong against the major currencies. The Australian dollar has had a brief blip higher but remains on the ropes, unable to get back above the 69 cent level. Meanwhile oil prices are slipping as the short and medium term trend below the $100USD per barrel level for Brent crude continues, with gold also still falling having deflated all last week as it falls below the $1745USD per ounce level:
Mainland Chinese share markets are having a solid start to the week with the Shanghai Composite up nearly 0.5% at 3274 points while the Hang Seng Index is again going backwards, down 0.2%, to remain below the 20,000 point level at 19735 points. Japanese stock markets remain unsteady with the Nikkei 225 losing around 0.4% to close under the 29000 point level again while the USDJPY pair remains overextended paused, but remains well above the 137 handle:
Australian stocks were the biggest losers today with the ASX200 closing nearly 1% lower at 7046 points. The Australian dollar came back slightly on the weekend gap open, but is still below the 69 cent level against USD:
Eurostoxx and US futures are pulling back sharply as we head into the London session, as the S&P500 four hourly futures chart shows price action furthering its retracement below trailing ATR support at the 4250 point level and below the trendline in this rally:
The economic calendar starts the trading week very slowly with some Treasury bond auctions and not much else.