Asian market preview 18/11/2008

US markets plunged again last night on the first trading day of the week. The fear of a deepening recession caused investors to dump stocks in a very volatile session. The financial sector is still showing struggling signal as Citigroup Inc. is cutting another 53,000 jobs and it plans to lower expenses by about 20%. Investors are also still waiting whether the troubled automakers would get a bailout from the $700 billion package. Industrial output came in better-than-expected last night, rising 1.3% compared to the 0.2% increase predicted by analysts. However, this figure is not encouraging enough as investors are still nervous about the bigger economy picture and there are more bad news compared to that single good news. Meanwhile, corporate earnings seems to have hit the wall and investors are unsure when it will recover. Retailers kept posting smaller revenues or forecasting weaker earnings in the coming quarters as consumer spending slowed. Wall Street was also disappointed as there are lack of directions taken to resolve the current crisis by the G-20 meeting over the weekend. The Dow ended down by 223.73 pts or 2.63% to 8,273.58, S&P500 fell 22.54 pts or 2.58% to 850.75 while Nasdaq ended lower by 34.80 pts or 2.29% to 1,482.05

Asian markets may open lower today following more bad news and more nervousness came out of the US last night. However, regional markets proved to have shown a bit of resilience yesterday as some of them managed to stay positive. Those performances yesterday may yet be tested again today whether investors still have the slight confidence in them to invest in Asia. Crude oil prices fell last night to close at 22-month low and was recently traded around $55.10ish per barrel, gold traded around $736ish and JPY traded around 96.35ish. Nikkei futures was closed at 8420 in CME compared to the close of 8415 here yesterday. Japan's Nikkei rose yesterday despite reports showing that the country is in a recession. Nikkei may find its support at 8100ish and its resistance at 8600ish today.

Kospi may open lower today following more fears shown by the US investors as they dumped stocks in the US trading session last night. However, Kospi may follow regional markets' trading pattern today. Kospi may show more resilience today as investors may look up for cheap stocks and invest for long-term. Kospi may find its support at 136ish and its resistance at 145ish today.

Hangseng may open lower yet again today following the same regional pattern. Baidu.com may weigh in the China mainland markets which may also weigh on Hangseng today. Morgan Stanley and Merril Lynch raised concerns about Baidu's listing practices as it seems that the company provided top positions for unlicensed medical web sites willing to pay more for popular key words. Hangseng may find its support at 12900ish and its resistance at 13700ish today.