The opening in Asia was the main discussion point for most dealers today. Oil hitting its lowest price ($27.65) since 2003, the Nikkei trading down 2% in the first 30 minutes of trading, and the Chinese raising the off-shore yuan all helped to spook markets. However, finally the fears were short-lived, and by close the […]

We did NOT elect  the Weekly Bearish today in the Dow Jones Industrial Japan tried to hold overnight gains but by the time the rest of the Asian markets opened it was too late and the selling pressure just increased with time. Nikkei closed down 94 points (-0.5%) but the futures quote dropped an additional […]

There was a time when a 2% price swing used to be something to write about! Asia returned a mixed session with the Nikkei (-2.6%) handing back most of yesterday’s gains. The Shanghai (+2%) recovered late in afternoon trading and finally the HSI (-0.56%) was way off of the opening lows. Early data in Japan […]

A mixed session in Asia (Nikkei +2.9% and Shanghai -2.4%) left just the HSI as the deciding factor and that closed stronger at +1.1%. Europe and the U.S. futures were all pricing in a stronger open and until mid-day (Europe) that was pretty much business as usual. Yes, we did see a turn in the […]

With Japan closed (Coming of Age Day) we were forced, yet again, to watch the excitement unfold on the Chinese exchange. Most of the talk was on the foreign exchange market where the off-shore currency quote (CNH) saw a huge jump (940bp) on the Hong Kong overnight quote to a 6.5850 (last seen +1.5% against […]

As you would have expected, all eyes were on Shanghai as the stock market opened with no limit restrictions imposed. It was not to be the session from hell that some dealers had feared but was almost calm. It is human nature to want to sell when they are restricted. When they have the ability […]

Why has China become so important? Largely because global investors are in this transition mode and do not understand how or why the foundation of everything is changing beneath them. The market turmoil in China spread around the world on Thursday as global investors took their lead from China as a contagion unfolded with no real understanding. […]

For the second time this week, China’s stock exchange saw a closing due to limit down (7% move). It happened early in the day (actually, only half an hour into the trading day) which spread an uneasy tension to the Nikkei and Heng Seng. The Nikkei lost 2.33% (as the JPY strengthened), whilst the HSI […]

Asia started weak (again), not China, but the Nikkei (-1%) and HSI (-1%). China actually performed better (+2.27%) with dealers quoting the off-shore FX weakness as a consequence. The yuan (off-shore) lost around 1% to close at a low of 6.7315 (a five-year record low). Obviously, North Korea’s claim that it has successfully carried out […]

Certainly, the markets were a lot more sedate today than they were on the first day of 2016! All eyes were on China after yesterday’s exchange close and initially, we did see a rather depressed (-2.6%) open, but only to recover within minutes. Most of the day was spent in and out of the red […]