The Hang Seng Index reversed its downward trend in Hong Kong on Thursday (February 12th), weakening by around 0.9% to around 27,000 after a strong session earlier. This decline halted the momentum of the short term rally, as investors began to reduce risk in large cap stocks. Among the index's contributors, Tencent was a major drag, with its shares falling by around 2.3%, putting pressure on the technology sector, which has recently been a driving force behind market gains. Weakness in large cap companies like this typically quickly impacts sentiment due to their significant weighting in...
Gold rises in the early Asian trade. There's a broad commodities uptrend, driven by macro uncertainty, a weaker dollar, and persistent demand for "hard" assets, says Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index and FOREX.com, in an email. "Gold's breakout above yet another round handle is simply fuelling the bullish momentum given the lack of any major selling activity," the analyst says. Gold could test next major level of $4,000/oz, with $3,900/oz broken, Razaqzada adds. Spot gold is 0.3% higher at $3,969.75/oz after earlier touching a fresh record intraday high of $3,976.18/oz, ICE...
Oil steadied after a two-day advance after OPEC+ agreed on a modest supply quota increase, with traders also parsing signals from lower-than-expected Saudi prices. West Texas Intermediate traded below $62 a barrel after a 1.3% gain on Monday, with Brent crude closing above $65. OPEC and allies including Russia decided at the weekend on a 137,000-barrel-a-day increment, while de-facto leader Saudi Arabia kept the price of its main grade to Asia unchanged in a sign of caution, surprising traders who had expected an increase. Crude posted back-to-back losses in August and September,...
USD/JPY pair edges higher to near 150.35, the highest since August 1, during the early Asian session on Tuesday. The Japanese Yen (JPY) weakens against the US Dollar (USD) on political stability concerns after Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) elected a new leader. Traders will keep an eye on the Fedspeak later on Tuesday. Japan's ruling party has elected Sanae Takaichi as its new leader on Saturday, positioning the 64-year-old to be Japan's first female Prime Minister. Her victory caused traders to reduce bets that the Bank of Japan (BoJ) will hike interest rates this month,...
WTI crude oil futures climbed 1.3% to $61.7 per barrel on Monday after OPEC+ agreed to a smaller-than-expected production increase, easing fears of a major supply surge. The group, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, said it would raise output by just 137K barrels per day in November matching October's increase despite earlier reports suggesting a much larger boost. The restrained move came amid diverging views within the alliance, with Moscow favoring a modest rise to protect prices and Riyadh pushing for a more aggressive expansion to reclaim market share. Prices were further...
Gold buyers appear unstoppable at the start of a fresh week, early Monday, despite the renewed US Dollar (USD) upswing and a risk-on rally on global stocks. Gold is finding demand due to increased safe-haven flows, mainly driven by the murky United States (US) economic outlook in the face of the extended government shutdown, which has entered a seventh day. There are no public signs that the Republican and Democratic lawmakers are making any efforts to end the impasse on reopening the federal government. This deadlock has raised worries over layoffs amid already weakening US labor market...