Asian stocks are selling off in response to the slump on Wall Street overnight as worries over the Chinese property market continue to contiminate Asian equity sentiment and proxies like the Australian dollar. Yuan continues to fall sharply with USD firming against the other majors with the Aussie dollar barely holding steady at the mid 64 cent level as the RBNZ paused in its latest meeting, with the Kiwi stuck at the 59 cent level vs USD.
Oil prices are still falling after last night’s modest selloff with Brent crude just above the $84USD per barrel level while gold remains entrenched in a downtrend, although no new lows after breaking the $1900USD per ounce level overnight:
Mainland Chinese share markets are continuing their selloff from last week with the Shanghai Composite down over 0.7% at 3152 points while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index has fallen back 1.5% to 18300 points.
Japanese stock markets retraced alongside Wall Street with the Nikkei 225 closing 1.3% lower at 31809 points while the USDJPY slipped slightly, currently just below the mid 145 level:
Australian stocks sold off start to finish with the ASX200 tumbling 1.5% lower to close at 7196 points while the Australian dollar went nowhere, steady and looking weak at the mid 64 cent level at its new monthly low:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are flat with the S&P500 four hourly chart showing the downtrend still in place but the barest possibility of a short term bottoming forming at the 4500 point level. The inability to get back above the 4600 point level before last week’s NFP print is resulting in this trend channel winding down further as confidence evaporates:
The economic calendar includes the latest Euro-area GDP estimates, then US housing starts and the release of the FOMC minutes.