Talking Points
- Asian shares wilted, seeming to want a new theme
- Wall Street didn’t give them one and French election relief wore off
- The Dollar was flat and oil inched higher
Would you like to know more about trading the Asian markets? DailyFX’s trading guide should be your first stop.
Asian stock markets inched down Tuesday following a lackluster Wall Street close and as the boost from Emmanuel Macron’s always-likely French Presidential Election win failed to last.
In Tokyo the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.3% after an impressive advance on Monday. Australia’s ASX was down by a similar amount. South Korean markets were closed Tuesday for a general election widely expected to see Liberal Moon Jae-in win the Presidency, filling the gap left by disgraced former leader Park Geun-hye.
Mainland Chinese stocks were again hit by worries about tighter market regulation while their Hong Kong counterparts rose.
The day’s Asian data found a familiar picture of wage weakness in Japan, and rather more surprising miss for Australian retail sales. UK retail seems to have had a wonderful April, but traders still fear more baleful Brexit effects ahead.
It was a quiet Asian session in the currency markets with the US Dollar about flat against the Japanese Yen and the Euro steady after giving back many of its Monday advance.
Crude oil prices managed very small gains, the usual hope for output cuts is vying with equally usual worries about increased US supply. Gold recovered from Monday’s seven-week lows, but not by very much. Gains were of the order of 0.1%.
The rest of the global session will offer investors news of Canadian building permits and US wholesale inventories. The occasionally diverting Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) will also see daylight. Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert Kaplan and Boston’s usually hawkish Eric Rosengren are scheduled to speak.
--- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research
Contact and follow David on Twitter: @DavidCottleFX
