Asian Stocks Talking Points:
- Asian stocks were mostly in the green Friday
- China’s plentiful economic numbers were solid enough
- The US Dollar remained pressured by disappointing US inflation data
The DailyFX Third-Quarter Fundamental and Technical Forecasts are out now
Asian stocks were mostly higher on Friday but trade concerns are still keeping optimism in check.
The region’s important semiconductor session was also stronger, having lost ground this week on a gloomy outlook from Goldman Sachs. However there’s no getting far away from the simmering trade tensions between China and the US. Donald Trump said on Thursday that the pressure was on China to make a trade deal with the US rather than vice versa. His remarks followed reports that the US wanted to restart talks with Beijing.
Still, the Nikkei 225 was up 0.8% as its weekly close approached. All other major bourses were in the green too, to varying degrees, with the exception of the Shanghai Composite. It was down but only by 0.1%.
In the foreign-exchange market, the US Dollar failed to regain much of the shine lost after Thursday’s weaker-than-expected inflation numbers. A Turkish rate hike soothed some of the recent jitters over Emerging Market currencies whereas the prospect of reduced stimulus in the Eurozone supported the Euro.
EUR/USD seems to be attempting to break out of its current uptrend channel, having returned to peaks not seen since August, 2017.
The Australian Dollar has had quite a strong weak by its own standards this year, although it remains under strategic pressure against its US big brother. Domestic growth and employment numbers have both surprised to the upside in the past five days, but a solid set of Chinese data on Friday didn’t see it gain much more.
Gold prices stayed up as those weak US inflation numbers put a little shadow over rate-hike prognoses. Crude oil prices also managed gains but trade related demand worries still cap the market.
Still to come on Friday’s economic schedule, official US retail sales figures and the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment snapshot. Central bank watchers can look forward to comment from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans and Boston’s Eric Rosengren.
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--- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research
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