Easy Come, Easy Go

The early positive mood music that surrounded weekend news which revealed the latest move on the part of Chinese authorities re: stimulating the property market, coupled with confirmation that Shanghai will start to gradually re-open from today, quickly vanished on the back of softer than expected Chinese economic activity data, which magnified any disappointment surrounding PBoC inaction in its latest round of MLF operations (net neutral in liquidity terms and no change in the interest rate applied to use the facility).

• Note that the aforementioned weekend news flow had allowed wider equity markets to look through Goldman Sachs downgrading its U.S. economic growth projections and year-end target for the S&P 500 during early Asia dealing.
• A positive lead from Wall St., after the S&P 500 rose by over 2.0% on Friday, also factored into early price action.
• The above moves leave the major regional equity indices in mixed territory, with the Nikkei 225 (+0.5%) and ASX 200 (+0.3%) higher on the day, while the Hang Seng (-0.4%) & CSI 300 (-0.8%) are lower, with the China-centric nature of market drivers resulting in losses.
• E-minis are 0.4-0.6% lower, with the NASDAQ 100 contract leading losses. The S&P 500 contract is back below 4,000.