Asian stocks traded mixed on Thursday with HK stock tumbling amid HK tensions. Japan stock market continued the rally but U.S. futures are indicating a low open tonight. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Wednesday that the State Department no longer considered Hong Kong to have significant autonomy under Chinese rule, which could mean HK might lose its special treatment in global trade that it currently enjoys from the U.S. CNY is weakening sharply against USD, as the tensions are escalating quickly between U.S. and China.
USD sideways although Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said the American economy may already have bottomed. The currency is likely to stay soft on improving sentiment as economies limp back to normalcy. Today’s focus will be on the weekly unemployment claims which are due in U.S. trading session.
Copper prices climbed as much as 2% overnight as investors looked past a US-China confrontation over Hong Kong to the prospect of Chinese economic stimulus that would improve metals demand. Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up 1.4 per cent at $US5,361.50 a tonne and near last week's two-month high of $US5,464.
The strong rally in equities the last two months has taken some of the safe-haven demand away fromgold, but we maintain our bullish stance as the low interest rates and fiscal measures by central banks could push prices higher. Elsewhere, rising tensions between US and China, fueled by accusations from President Donald Trump that China was not fully transparent in disclosing the peril of the Coronavirus along with his attempt to assert more control over Hong Kong could spark some risk aversion, driving demand for the safe haven asset.
Oil prices drifted lower after US industry report signaled that crude inventories swelled for the first time in 3 weeks. This news came after Russia announced plans to scale back it’s supply cuts earlier this week. However, president Putin and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman re-affirmed their cooperation ahead of the June meeting. These developments caused further confusion to the oil markets and with the virus pandemic still on-going, the road to recovery looks tougher. The CAD also looks to weaken against the USD in line with the developments in the oil market.
Technical & Trade views
USDCAD (Intraday bias: bullish above 1.3735)
We turned bullish as price is approaching our 1st support where the 127% fibonacci extension and horizontal swing low support are.Price is likely to bounce here towards our 1st resistance where the 38.2% fibonacci retracement is. MACD also shows support here.
UKOIL (Intraday bias: Neutral between 36.66 and 32.03)
Oil price drifted lower as expected. However now price is holding between 1st resistance and 1st support. With technical indicators being mixed and no good levels for entry, we prefer to turn neutral for now.
XAUUSD ( Intraday bias: bullish above 1693.744)
We caught the bounce nicely from our first support level and remain bullish above this level, in line with our ascending support line, horizontal swing low support, 78.6% fibonacci retracement and 127.2% fibonacci extension where we could see a further bounce above this level to our first resistance level. Stochastic is bouncing off our support as well.
XCUUSD ( Intraday bias: bullish above 2.36914)
We caught the bounce nicely from our first support level and remained bullish above our support at 2.36914, in line with our horizontal pullback support, 61.8% fibonacci retracement and 78.6% fibonacci extension, where we could see a bounce to our first resistance level. Stochastic and Ichimoku cloud are showing signs of bullish pressure in line with our bullish bias.
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Desmond Leong runs an award-winning research firm (The Technical Analyst finalists 2018/19/20 for Best FX and Equity Research) advising banks, brokers and hedge funds. Backed by a team of CFA, CMT, CFTe accredited traders, he takes on the market daily using a combination of technical and fundamental analysis.