03.05.24 Macro Morning

 | May 03, 2024 09:44

Anxiety and fear over what could or could not happen at last night’s FOMC meeting was met with relief as the Fed didn’t really change signalling on its interest rate trajectory. Bond markets pulled back slightly and the USD also gave up a lot of its recent gains in the aftermath, helped by the lack of traders in Europe as they had a Labour Day holiday. Wall Street had minor wobbles and combined with some Chinese markets closed today should see a subdued response in Asian share markets. That can’t be said for currency markets however with more intervention in Yen seeing epic volatility overnight while the Australian dollar has spiked back above the 65 cent level.

10 year Treasury yields moved nearly 5 points lower back down to the 4.6% level, while oil prices rolled over further, with Brent crude down to the $83USD per barrel level. Meanwhile gold was able to take advantage of the FOMC non result to launch back above the $2300USD per ounce level.

Looking at markets from yesterday’s session in Asia, where mainland and offshore Chinese share markets are again looking listless with the Shanghai Composite down 0.3% while the Hang Seng Index was closed.

The Hang Seng Index daily chart was starting to look more optimistic with price action bunching up at the 16000 point level before breaking out in the previous session as it tried to make a run for the end of 2023 highs at 17000 points with the downtrend line broken. Price action looks way overextended here so I expect a small retracement back to the 17000 point level: