The Israel-Iran war continues to dominate risk markets as the new trading week gets underway here in Asia with share markets quite mixed while there has been a slight bit of strength in USD over the weekend gap, but still far from a proper safe haven bid. With all eyes on the Middle East conflict, there is still little to no progress in trade deals with the US as India rejects the latest deal before the TACO deadline while the G7 prepares to meet in Canada, probably with a lot of talking behind Trump’s back. CANZUK anyone? The Australian dollar remains slightly below the 65 cent level in the risk off mood.
Oil markets are not surprisingly still high on the ballistic lobbing with Brent crude just below the $75USD per barrel level while gold is also holding on to recent gains above the $3400USD per ounce level:
Mainland Chinese share markets are steady going into the afternoon session as the Shanghai Composite remains slightly below the 3400 point level while the Hang Seng Index has slipped slightly to remain below its own recent resistance level at 24000 points. Japanese stock markets are pushing higher on BOJ speculation with the Nikkei 225 moving up more than 1% to 38276 points while trading in the USDPY pair has seen the lack of a gap down following Friday night’s bounceback on the safe haven trade above the 144 level:
Australian stocks are dead flat with the ASX200 about to close at 8545 points while the Australian dollar has started the week below the 65 handle on the war tensions but remains firm:
S&P and Eurostoxx futures are surprisingly robust with the S&P500 four hourly chart previously showing a desire to get back above the recent highs at the 6000 point level but this could be a short term momentum reversal :
The economic calendar starts the week quietly with some US bond sales and the G-7 meeting coming up.