Meanwhile Wall Street closed this morning all but steady after those big losses in European and Asian markets yesterday and overnight.
The Dow lost 11 points, or 0.1% to end at 16,340.08. The S&P 500 ended up 0.57 points, or less than 0.1%, at 1,868.20 and the Nasdaq Composite rose a solid 16 points, or 0.4%, to end at 4,323.33.
Our market will open flat, according to the overnight futures trading. But a greater influence will be the second successive rise in the price of iron ore overnight – up 2.4% to $US107.40 (or around $US117) a tonne.
The Aussie dollar rose to just under 90 US cents – up more than half a cent overnight as fears about copper prices, China’s economy and Ukraine eased.
Gold rose $US20 an ounce to $US1367 in New York, but that was down on the official close of $US1,370.50. It was gold’s highest close in six months.
But oil slid under $US100 a barrel in New York and remained there to be down 1.8% on the day.
New York copper prices rose a cent on Comex to finish at $US2.96 a pounds, but still weak and driven more by events on the London and Shanghai copper markets.
Copper is still down 4% this week, and 13% in 2014 so far.
European shares fell to their lowest level in a month overnight as those fears about Russia and Ukraine continued to dominate sentiment.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 1.1% to 327.95 at the close of trading. It’s now fallen 3.1% from its five year high on February 25, according to Bloomberg.
European stock markets mirrored the weak trading activity yesterday in Asia, which saw Japan’s Nikkei down 2.6% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lose 1.7%.
Australia’s market was down more than 1% in the early afternoon, but halved that loss to finish off 30 points.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 1.5%. yesterday.
The ASX 200 Index lost 29.6 points or 0.6% to 5384.2, while the All Ordinaries Index shed half a percent to 5400.5.
