Global stock markets continue to rise to new all-time highs, led by Asian markets such as Japan and Korea.
- Stock markets in Japan continue to rise strongly following the LDP's stunning election victory last weekend, with the Nikkei 225 Index rising to a new record high. Trend traders will be interested to be long here. In the USA, which typically leads global stock markets higher, action is more subdued, with the S&P 500 Index chopping around below 7,000 and the NASDAQ 100 well off its high, although the Dow Jones 30 Industrial Average did close strongly at a new record high last Friday.
- Bitcoin is still looking essentially bearish as it keeps failing to break above the key resistance level at $71,762. At the time of writing, the short-term price action was bearish too.
- Gold is the strongest of all precious metals, and it is still able to trade above the key round number at $5,000, but it is failing to get substantially higher than that.
- In the Forex market, since today's Tokyo open, the strongest major currency has been the Japanese Yen, while the weakest has been the Australian Dollar, putting the AUD/JPY currency cross into focus. I forecasted over the weekend that the value of this cross was likely to fall over this week. The pair I see as most suitable for day trading today is the AUD/USD on the long side.
- There is still no date set for further talks between the USA and Iran after the first round of talks last Friday, although the Iranian foreign minister is visiting Oman today and is probably conveying something. The prediction market site Polymarket sees a US strike on Iran as likely to happen in April or May.
- There will be a release of US Retail Sales data today.
- Tomorrow is a public holiday in Japan.