Most Asian equities flashed red on Tuesday, pressured by losses in Chinese shares as investors evaluated China’s re-opening story in the face of negative economic and geopolitical forces. European futures are pointing to a mixed open with market players guarded ahead of another event-heavy week for financial markets. Some of the largest companies in the world including the four Big Tech titans (Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon) will be reporting their results this week.

Watch this space because the USDJPY could end April with a bang!

Investors will be served a super combo of top-tier economic data this week combined with the Bank of Japan (BoJ) rate decision. With so much going on over the next few days, it may be wise to fasten your seatbelts in preparation for market volatility.

Four Big Tech companies, with a combined market cap of over US$ 5 trillion (that’s $5,000,000,000,000), are set to release their respective quarterly earnings in the coming week.

The final week of April also features these scheduled economic data releases and events:

After touching the year-to-date bottom from early February at 100.82 last week, the DXY has rebounded this week. If it holds onto its gains and prints a positive, green candle, that will at least stop a run of five consecutive weeks of losses. This has come about chiefly as US Treasury bond yields have also bounced back after a few weeks of turmoil brought on by the March banking madness / crisis.

Asian shares finished mixed on Tuesday, shrugging off the initial boost from China’s better-than-expected Q1 GDP as signs of an uneven recovery stalled risk taking. The world’s second largest economy smashed forecasts by expanding 4.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier. However, the disappointing readings on industrial production suggested that weakness still lingered in the economy, even as retail sales surged. European markets edged higher despite the caution from Asia as investors focused on the global economic outlook and corporate earnings.

The next few days promise to be volatile for the S&P 500 thanks to fundamental and technical forces.

After bouncing within a range for the past two weeks, the index could be waiting for a fresh catalyst to trigger a major bullish or bearish breakout.

Shifting expectations surrounding Fed rate hikes remain the primary driver of financial markets.

Yet, the week ahead still features several other potential catalysts for more opportunities for various assets:

Monday, April 17

Markets love round numbers! They act as important psychological markers and can prompt strong reactions in price action as well as grabbing the headlines. These levels can also act as decisive areas of resistance and support on a technical basis, with 1000s of orders to buy and sell usually located in these critical zones of confluence.

Most Asian stocks struggled for direction on Wednesday as investors turned cautious ahead of key U.S inflation data that may impact the Fed’s monetary policy path. European and US equity futures are both pointing to a mixed open in what feels like the calm before a potential storm. In the currency space, the dollar edged lower this morning weakening against almost every single G10 currency excluding the Japanese yen.

Here’s a look at the S&P 500 from a technical perspective, even as fundamental traders and investors around the world count down to tomorrow’s (Wednesday, April 12) highly-anticipated US inflation data, as we did in our Week Ahead article published this past Friday.