A red day to finish the trading week as Asian stock markets mostly reacted negatively to the overnight sharp moves down on Wall Street and in Europe as the ECB and BOE hiked interest rates after the Fed’s midweek push higher, fanning recession fears once again. USD continues to push back against the commodity currencies, with Euro still looking strong as the Australian dollar retraces back down to the 67 level after a mid session blip higher. Meanwhile oil prices are failing to get off the floor with Brent crude just above the $81USD per barrel level while gold is poised to break down yet again, hovering just abover support from its overnight volatility as it cracks below the key $1800USD per ounce level:
Mainland Chinese share markets went positive briefly mid session before falling at the close with the Shanghai Composite staying well below the 3200 point level, down 0.4% at 3156 points while the Hang Seng Index is dead flat at 19367 points. Japanese stock markets had the steepest falls in the region with the Nikkei 225 closing nearly 2% lower to 27498 points as the USDJPY pair tried to breakout above the 138 level but has retraced somewhat in afternoon trade:
Australian stocks fell sharply but have recovered somewhat with the ASX200 losing more than 0.7% to close the week well below the 7200 point level, finishing at 7148 points. The Australian dollar was able to move higher at first before getting smacked back down to the 67 handle later this afternoon, in line with its recent weekly lows:
Eurostoxx and US futures are just holding on to their recent lows as we head into the London session with the S&P500 four hourly chart showing price action stuck near the recent weekly lows at the 3920 point level, as 4000 points becomes key resistance:
The economic calendar finishes the week with UK retail sales, plus a slew of PMI’s across Europe and the US.