Hesitation around the US debt ceiling resolution in Congress plus more hawkish comments from the ECB kept risk markets at bay on Friday night, although European stocks continued to outperform Wall Street. Currency markets remain firmly on the side of the USD as the safe haven of choice but a late bounce away from oversold conditions saw Euro blip up to a new daily high while the Australian dollar remained at the mid 66 cent level after making a new weekly low.
Meanwhile US Treasury yields continued to rise higher on comments Fed Chair Powell with the 10 year almost breaching the 3.7% level while oil prices were unable to follow through on their recent rebound with Brent crude maintaining the $75USD per barrel level position. Gold’s depressed mood saw a one off volatile blip higher after seemingly bottoming out at the $1950USD per ounce level level but this maybe shortlived as price remains decisively below the psychologically important $2000 level.
Looking at share markets in Asia from Friday’s session where mainland Chinese share markets gapped down at the open but managed to claw back some of their losses but the Shanghai Composite still finished off more than 0.4% at 3283 points. Meanwhile the Hang Seng closed nearly 1.4% lower, again rejecting the 20000 point level to finish at 19450 points.
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