Asia Pacific Market Open Talking Points
- Sentiment unexpectedly improved before Europe trade commenced, a clear catalyst seemed absent
- British Pound[1] weakness accelerated on soft UK GDP data, Asia Pacific stocks may see mixed day
- US Dollar has best winning streak since 2016 as key resistance cleared, eyeing late 2018 highs
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3 Things to Know Before Trading APAC Markets
1) Market Mood Improves During European Trade
After a rather mixed Asia trading session on Monday, market mood considerably improved heading into the European trading session. Several newswires attributed this to bets on a trade agreement between the US and China as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Vice Premier Liu He head for talks later this week. That seemed doubtful.
Around 7:21 GMT (9 minutes before S&P 500[3] futures took off) China said that there is no information available on a meeting plan between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. What did cross the wires shortly before sentiment surged was a report from the Bank of France that its home economy is expected to grow 0.4% in the first quarter of 2019.
Since this would be a step towards avoiding a technical recession (after Italy went into one), it is not too surprising to see the DAX[4] and Euro[5] Stoxx 50 find gains of almost one percent each. What is more interesting is that the Euro and British Pound generally weakened as the US Dollar gained. Meanwhile, government
