The USD is weakening going into this week’s conference at Jackson Hole which is giving equities and other risk markets a lift, with Asian stocks stronger across the board. The USD is giving back ground to beleaguered major currency pairs with the Australian dollar lifting off the deck to the mid 64 cent level.
Oil prices are trying to bounce back after the recent modest selloff but Brent crude is retracing below the $85USD per barrel level while gold is getting some relief amid the USD weakness following its breakdown below the $1900USD per ounce level last week:
Mainland Chinese share markets lifted into the close with the Shanghai Composite up nearly 1% at 3120 points while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index has done the same, up 1.1% to finish at 17830 points.
Japanese stock markets also had similar results, building on their previous positive session with the Nikkei 225 lifting nearly 0.9% to 31865 points while the USDJPY is pulling back below the 146 level after topping out last night:
Australian stocks are the worst performers relatively speaking, with the ASX200 closing just 0.1% higher at 7121 points while the Australian dollar is slowly building above the 64 cent level after almost hitting the mid 63 cent level last week:
Eurostoxx and S&P futures are building higher here with the S&P500 four hourly chart showing the downtrend from the last two weeks possibly finding a bottom. However, the inability to get back above the 4600 point level before last month’s NFP print could be too far a target to reach here as confidence wavers:
The economic calendar is again fairly quiet tonight with some Fed official speeches and US existing home sales but not much else.