Asian stock markets waved aside the mild retreats on Wall Street and in European shares overnight, and are still lifting across the region. The USD is treading water against the major currencies, with commodity currencies like the Australian dollar lifting and playing catchup, with the Pacific Peso back above the key 65 cents level. Meanwhile oil prices are holding on to their overnight gains due to the OPEC production cuts, with Brent crude still above the $93USD per barrel level while gold is pushing higher after pausing from its breakthrough above the $1700USD per ounce level, but is still coming up against resistance at the $1730 level:
Mainland Chinese share markets are closed all week for National Day holidays while the Hang Seng Index has put in a scratch session after being up nearly 6% in the previous session, finishing at 18075 points. Japanese stock markets are doing most of the heavy lifting today, with the Nikkei 225 up nearly 1% to close at 27366 points while the USDJPY pair is trying to maintain a position at the mid 144 handle after the mid week mild retracement:
Australian stocks have put in a scratch session, with the ASX200 finishing just above the 6800 point level to close at 6817 points. The Australian dollar is no longer being contained after yesterday’s RBNZ rate hike, finally able to head back above the 65 handle:
Eurostoxx and US futures are pushing back on to their overnight losses with the S&P500 four hourly futures chart showing price action wanting to extend above former support, now resistance at the 3800 point level after filling in the last two weeks of losses. Medium term and possibly psychological long term resistance at the 4000 point level is still a long way away,but momentum remains nicely overbought here going into tomorrow’s all important jobs number:
The economic calendar includes the latest ECB meeting minutes, then US weekly initial jobless claims as a preview of tomorrow night’s NFP print.