"screaming sell signal" lol. Nikkei is significantly undervalued vis a vis the S&P. it's been a looooooooooooong bear market.
i've traded the SGXNK product *(singapore) and it is very tradeable and very trendy. my one qualm is that the spread sux. I won't trade the ES (i only trade YM) because i think the spread on ES sux, so you can see where i am coming from. spread in singapore is 5 pts, but considering it moves 100 pts+ in a move quite often, that aint too bad. you most definitely CAN trade hong kong (hang seng) futures in the US. you cannot trade the MINI, but the fullsize contract is only about USD $5 per point. Hang Seng is much more difficult to trade. somebody described it as "the DAX on crack" which is about right. actually, it's more like the DAX on crystal meth.
it is the options (foreign index options) that you cannot trade in the USA. hang seng and nikkei futures otoh are great, and i trade them through IB.
if u want options (whether to hedge a futures position, or just as a long or short position), options on EWJ, EWH etc. are the way to go.