The first Asian session of a new week (and a new month) was an upbeat one. Nikkei and S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5% while indices from China traded up to 0.9% higher. Kospi traded slightly lower

DAX futures point to a lower opening of the European cash session

US index futures trade slightly below Friday’s cash close

US House Speaker Pelosi embarked on her Asian visit. Official documents do not mention plans to visit Taiwan. China once again warned United States not to provoke its response

US President Biden tested positive for Covid again

Tension on the Serbia-Kosovo border increased in recent days. NATO said that it is prepared to intervene if stability in the region is jeopardized

Russian Gazprom halted gas deliveries to Latvia over the weekend

Fed’s Kashkari said that markets have gotten ahead of themselves with pricing a rate cut next year

CRIC, a Chinese real estate data provider, said that sales at the 100 biggest Chinese developers dropped 39.7% YoY in July. S&P Global Ratings estimates that Chinese banks may lose up to $350 billion in worst case scenario for Chinese property market

Official Chinese manufacturing PMI dropped from 50.2 to 49.0 in July (exp. 50.3), reaching a 3-month low. Services gauges dropped from 54.7 to 53.8 (exp. 53.9)

South Korean manufacturing PMI dropped from 51.3 to 49.8 in July. This is the first reading in a contraction territory since September 2020

Majority of cryptocurrencies trade lower at the start of a new week. Bitcoin drops 1% while Ethereum trades 0.9% lower

Oil and other energy commodities pull back today. Brent trades 0.4% lower while WTI drops 0.6%

Precious metals drop in spite of USD weakness. Gold trades 0.1% lower near $1,760 per ounce

NZD and JPY are the best performing major currencies while USD and EUR lag the most

Japanese yen leads among G10 currencies today as risk-off moods are on the rise. The pair dropped below the lower limit of the Overbalance structure last week and is deepening the drop today. The near-term support to watch can be found in the 134.40 area, where 50% retracement and 200-session moving average are located.