Asian stocks trade mixed amid gains in Yuan

• China’s officials warned speculators against shorting Yuan. 
• Asian stocks are trading mixed this Monday morning as Yuan gained after China warned against shorting the currency. 

At press time, Japan’s Nikkei is reporting 0.14% gains and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 is trading largely unchanged on the day. 

The Shanghai Composite index, however, is down 0.40% on the day and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has shed a 0.88% loss.

The mixed action comes after the European elections ended with the populist and anti-EU political parties gaining ground. Notably, UK’s Brexit party dominated Tories and Labour.

Also, so far, strength in China’s Yuan has not boosted risk appetite. As noted earlier, the stocks in China are flashing red even though the offshore Chinese Yuan (CNH)rose to a 12—day high of 6.8973 earlier today. 

The rise in CNH could be associated with the warning by China’s senior-most economic official that speculators “shorting the yuan will inevitably suffer from a huge loss.”

USD/CNH rose to 6.95 earlier this month, triggering fears that the psychological level of 7.00 could be breached soon, courtesy of trading tensions.