Its a sea of red across Asian share markets with the lack of a positive lead from a closed Wall Street overnight combined with big slumps in Chinese shares sending risk markets lower. A slightly stronger USD isn’t helping either with the Australian dollar falling down throughout today’s session, about to break below the 66 cent level as we head into the London sessions.
Oil prices have stalled as US traders return tonight with Brent crude still slightly above the $78USD per barrel level while gold is slowly turning over after previously matched its Friday night breakout high as price dips below the $2050USD per ounce level:
Mainland Chinese share markets are failing to hold onto their early losses as they head into the close as the Shanghai Composite again fails to break above the 2900 point barrier, currently down 0.8% at 2883 points while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index has collapsed more than 2% lower to 15865 points. Japanese stock markets are finally stopping their big breakouts with the Nikkei 225 down nearly 0.7% to 35664 points while the USDJPY pair has another attempt at breaking out above the 146 level:
Australian stocks slumped after failing to gain any momentum yesterday, with the ASX200 down over 1% to push well below the 7500 point level, closing at 7414 points. Meanwhile the Australian dollar also brokedown further after slipping through the 67 handle on the weekend gap and is now threatening the 66 cent level:
S&P and Eurostoxx futures are pulling back in unison with the S&P500 four hourly chart showing a retracement back to the 4800 point level which should act somewhat as support going into tonight’s session:
The economic calendar will focus on the latest German inflation and UK unemployment print.