World Equity Markets And USD Stabilise

 | Aug 25, 2015 07:39AM ET

Asian regional equity markets stabilise, to some extent, this morning while the pace of sell-off in mainland Chinese stocks is maintained. World’s stock markets may have not reached the bottom yet but traders took a step back and had a look at the damage. On the bright side, US futures are up 1.24% this morning after having suffered a bear attack on Monday. The S&P 500 lost 3.94%, the Dow Jones 3.57% while the NASDAQ dropped 3.82%. This morning in Asia, the Shanghai Composite fell 6.98% and returned to levels last seen in December 2014 while the SZSE Composite slid 7.13%. In Japan, the Nikkei remains among the loser as it dropped 3.96% while the broader TOPIX index fell 3.26%. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng fell 1.44% while in South Korea the KOSPI surged 0.92%. Further south, Australian shares are the biggest winners with a gain of 2.72%.

In the FX market, the US dollar gets some respite from sellers and recovers previous losses as the dollar index adds 0.33% over the last 24 hours. USD/JPY broke its 200dma yesterday amid fears spread from the equity market to the FX market. The pair stabilised above the bottom of its February-May range, around 118 and will likely have a hard time breaking the 200dma, standing at 120.72 for the moment, to the upside. AUD/USD was somewhat less sensitive to global fears about China’s economic slowdown as the Aussie is first in line when traders price in the consequences of a weaker growth from the world’s second biggest economy.