- Asian shares remain mixed with MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific Shares (ex-Japan) being mildly positive.
- Downbeat US Retail Sales, trade/Brexit risk weigh on market sentiment.
- EU summit becomes the key event going forward.
While trade/Brexit worries already weigh on the investor sentiment, downbeat prints of the US Retail Sales gave additional reasons to the Asian equity skeptics. As a result, the MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares ex-Japan registers a lack of gains with 0.10% profits by the press time of the pre-Europe opening session on Thursday.
Japan’s NIKKEI stopped after surging to the 10-month high the previous day while Australia’s ASX 200 drops nearly 0.70% as surprise decline in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dimmed prospects of further rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).
New Zealand’s NZX 50 follows the suit with 0.30% loss mainly due to an absence of major catalysts, amid broad risk-off, while HANG SENG gains 0.70% from hopes of further stimulus. Moving on, India’s BSE SENSEX and China’s CSI 100 await fresh trade news as the latest one keeps flashing mixed signals amid a political tussle between the United States (US) and China.
Moving forward, a lack of major data during Asian session could keep the market’s stick to headlines for fresh clues just ahead of the key Retail Sales data from the United Kingdom (UK). It should also be noted that the US second-tier data and Fedspeak, coupled with comments from the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) Governor, will entertain momentum traders.
Above all, markets will be closely observing any Brexit clues from the two-day-old EU Summit starting from today in order to direct near-term Euro (EUR) and the British Pound (GBP) moves.
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