Last night’s first session of the trading week lacked any major catalysts with stocks on both sides of the Atlantic slipping, Wall Street more so as oil prices took a dive despite some more strategic building of US reserves. The Australian dollar pulled back from its five month high to remain just above the 66 cent level while Euro continued its selloff with another new weekly low.
US bond markets saw a rebound across the yield curve with 10 year Treasury yields lifting nearly 10 points to just below the 4.3% level while oil prices remain volatile in the wake of the latest OPEC meeting with Brent crude pushed towards the $78USD per barrel level. Gold blewout on the Monday morning open but this was pulled back sharply with a steep retracement back down to the $2020USD per ounce level.
Looking at share markets in Asia from yesterday’s session where mainland Chinese share markets were back in the red at the close with the Shanghai Composite down 0.3% to 3022 points while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index was also off, down over 1% to continue its losing streak, closing at 16646 points.