asia morning nov 5

On Wednesday,  U.S. stocks extended their strong gains to a third session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 367 points (+1.34%) to 27847, the S&P 500 increased 74 points (+2.20%) to 3443, and the Nasdaq 100 soared 497 points (+4.41%) to 11777.


S&P 500 Index (Daily Chart) : Bullish Gap

Sources: GAIN Capital, TradingView



The presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden remains unsettled, while all eyes are now on vote counting in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Both sides are expected to take legal actions to challenge results in states, and it could take days or weeks to decide who the winner is.

Media (+5.2%), Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology & Life Sciences (+5.08%) and Software & Services (+4.16%) sectors performed the best. Biogen (BIIB +43.97%) became the top gainer after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) posted a positive report on the company's Alzheimer's drug aducanumab.

Approximately 71% (67% in the prior session) of stocks in the S&P 500 Index were trading above their 200-day moving average and 51% (33% in the prior session) were trading above their 20-day moving average.

Regarding U.S. economic data, the Automatic Data Processing's employment report showed that the economy added 365,000 private jobs in October (+643,000 expected). The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Services Index posted at 56.6 for October (57.5 expected).

European stocks stayed strong. The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 2.05%, Germany's DAX climbed 1.95%, France's CAC 40 jumped 2.44% and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was up 1.67%.

U.S. Treasury prices rebounded, as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield retreated to 0.768% from 0.884% Tuesday.

Spot gold fell $5 (-0.27%) to $1,904 an ounce.

U.S. WTI crude futures (December) advanced a further $1.36 (+3.61%) to $39.02 a barrel.

The forex market saw a choppy session as the election was too close to call. The ICE Dollar Index swung up to 94.30 before coming down to close at 93.44, down 0.11% on day.

EUR/USD sank to 1.1603 before rebounding to close at 1.1723, compared with 1.1715 in the prior session.

USD/JPY failed to stay above 105.00 and closed at 104.52.

GBP/USD lost the 1.3000 level again as it slipped 0.53% to 1.2989.

AUD/USD managed to added 0.22% to 0.7180.

USD/CNH (offshore yuan) ended 0.86% to 6.6233 posting a 5-day losing streak.