Hong Kong shares slide after weekend violence

Index snaps a two-day streak

In an otherwise rather dull Asian morning session today, the biggest mover was the HongKong33 index which struggled after another flare-up at protests during the weekend. While most other indices benefitted from the latest move on Wall Street to record levels, the local index slid 0.38% to 28,961, after earlier touching the highest since May 8 last year. Today’s move snapped a two-day winning streak and could mark the 29,200 mark as a crucial resistance level.

HK33 Daily Chart

Source: OANDA fxTrade

Currencies steady

With US markets closed later today for Martin Luther King Day, and China markets having one eye on the Lunar New Year holidays starting at the end of the week, activity in the markets was quite muted, especially so in the currency markets.

EUR/USD traded 0.08% higher while the Australian dollar out-performed with gains of 0.14% versus the US dollar and 0.16% versus the Japanese yen. AUD/USD has snapped a two-day losing streak and rebounded ahead of the 55-day moving average at 0.6868.

AUD/USD Daily Chart

Source: OANDA fxTrade

A sparse calendar

It’s a slow start to the week on the data front with Japan’s industrial production and capacity utilization data for November the major event left. These are final readings for the month and the provisional ones showed a 0.9% m/m decline and a 4.5% drop, respectively

German producer prices probably rose 0.1% m/m in December, a marginal increase from the flat reading the previous month.