Summary: Asian shares ended the trading session slightly higher as worries over U.S-Sino trade war were calmed by conciliatory comments from Beijing. In Tokyo Japan’s benchmark Nikkei225 added 0.8% to 21,680.15, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.4% to 5,680.90. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.3% to 2,076.42. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index edged 0.1% lower to 26,133.53, while the Shanghai Composite was flat at 2,605.89. Shares also rose in India, Indonesia and Taiwan.
Crude Oil : Crude Oil prices slipped in Asia trading session, as the meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna, Austria failed to announce any output decision. U.S. crude inventories fell by 7.3 million barrels to 443.2 million barrels as of Nov. 30 from last week, the first drop in 11 weeks, according to the Energy Information Administration on Thursday.
AUDUSD : AUDUSD struggled to build on overnight attempted recovery from over three-week tops and traded with a negative bias for the fourth consecutive session. Despite yesterday’s bearish mood for the pair the psychological 0.72 level managed to hold, traders now expecting a recovery to 0.7240 area.
USDJPY : USDJPY is trading in narrow trading range between 112.92 and 112.60, Karen Jones, analyst at Commerzbank, notes that the USDJPY pair recovered after being sold off towards the base of the cloud at 112.16 and further support is seen along the 8 month support line at 111.93.
“This may hold the initial test BUT the sell off is looking directional and failure here would target the 110.59/109.77 200 day moving average and August low. If the 109.77 August low were to give way, the June 8 low at 109.20 would be in focus.”
“Failure there would imply a slide back to the 108.12 May 29 low and the mid February high at 107.91. Minor resistance comes in along the 55 day ma at 113.07.”
EURUSD : EURUSD started the European trading session with gains around 1.1380 area with investors looking to developments in Italy and the Brexit negotiations as main drivers of the price action. PM Conte’s government is expected to submit a revised version of the budget proposal at some point next week, while the crucial vote in the House of Commons is due on December 11. CME Group, investors added nearly 1.5K contracts to their open interest positions on Thursday from Wednesday’s final 535,856 contracts. In the same direction, volume rose sharply by almost 128K contracts.
GBPUSD : GBPUSD upside momentum capped at 1.28 with the pair giving up Asians session gains just to start European trading at 1.2750. CME Group’s advanced data for GBP futures markets noted open interest rose by almost 2K contracts on Thursday vs. Wednesday’s final 235,336 contracts. Volume followed suit, up by around 62.1K contracts, partially reverting the previous draw.
Traders are now eyeing U.S. jobs data which will be released later today as a way to gauge the country’s economic stability and for hints as to whether the US economy may be losing steam in the face of US – China trade tensions.
