The Chinese Stocks continue to climb higher after China lifts more covid measurements

Monday starts with strong gains in Asia – particularly in China – where Hang Seng is up by over 4% and the Shanghai Composite Index is rising almost by 2% over the news that China is lifting some Covid-testing measurements. This is another step on the way to ease the zero-Covid policy in general and it may be the scenario that market participants are currently anticipating. The futures on European and American Indices remain strong and it looks like the stocks do not tend to go down. There is a big hope for a juicy Santa Rally and nobody really wants to miss the chance by not owning any shares.

On the forex market, the first hours of trading were negative for the dollar. The early hours in Europe, on the other hand, are bringing us some strength on the USD, which is in line with the move seen straight after the NFPs on Friday. It is worth reminding, however, that the dollar strengthening post-NFP was already wiped out in the second half of Friday and the dollar bulls have to start pretty much from square one.

The weakest currency among the majors is the Japanese Yen who is currently rapidly losing the gains from the previous week. Among the strongest ones are the Canadian Dollar and British Pound.

We observed comments from OPEC+ where the cartel confirmed sticking to the existing production cut policy. Oil seems currently unaffected by the price falling in line with the move that started in the second half of Thursday.

Metals are enjoying the Monday morning with nickel climbing almost 5% higher and iron ore being up by slightly more than 4%. Precious metals like gold are not so confident with the gain now but at least they stay on the green side of the market.

The calendar today is rather empty with the Services PMI coming down for the whole day. First China (lower than expected), then Europe and, finally, the USA where we are expecting the highest reading out of all (53.5).