Not quite the bath of blood on Asian stocks in today’s session as risk markets react to the crash on Wall Street overnight due to the higher than expected US CPI print. The USD remains super strong against the major currency pairs although Yen has firmed on the defensive bid. The Australian dollar is hovering at its weekly lows, while oil prices are pulling back sharply, with Brent crude now just above the $92USD per barrel level. Meanwhile gold is still stuck around recent weekly support at the $1700USD per ounce level:
Mainland Chinese share markets had some modest selloffs with the Shanghai Composite down 0.7% to 3238 points while the Hang Seng Index slumped more than 2% lower, currently at 18870 points. Japanese stock markets were the worst however, as the Nikkei 225 closing 2.8% lower at 27818 points with the USDJPY pair is trending slightly lower after shooting back up to the 145 handle:
Australian stocks were also hit hard on the open but didn’t extend their losses, with the ASX200 finishing some 2.6% lower at 6828 points. The Australian dollar however continued to fall, now threatening the 67 handle and the recent weekly lows:
Eurostoxx and US futures are trying to hold fast here in the wake of the overnight carnage although its expected the former will gap down lower as a result of playing catchup. The S&P500 four hourly futures chart shows how fast price action fell down to the elevator chart, wiping out all of last week’s gains:
The economic calendar follows up with the latest UK inflation print, then US core PPI.