Another solid night on world markets – including new highs for the Aussie dollar and local stockmarket – as risk fears eased and tech, biotech and net stocks rebounded strongly for a second day on Wall Street.
The Aussie dollar rose in late US trading, nudging 94 US cents with a session high of 93.99. It was trading around 93.88 in early Asian trading.
And if the March labour force figures today are in any way solid – such as a larger than expected number of new jobs created – then the dollar could very well jump back above the 94 US cent mark and head back to 95 cents.
Economists say in market surveys that 5,000 or so new jobs were created last month, and many forecast the jobless rate to rise to 6.1%. It almost that reached that level in February, but was set at 6.0% for statistical reasons.
Markets in Europe rose, following their counterparts in Asia higher, although Tokyo stood out with a fall because the Bank of Japan ruled out any more stimulus.
Helping sentiment in the US were the minutes of the Fed’s last meeting – which contained nothing new or ‘dangerous‘ to market belief that interest rates will remain low for some time yet.
The Dow, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all added more than 1% – Nasdaq actually jumped 1.7% as those big losers from last week bounced back.
Gold rose slightly to $1,311 an ounce – up around $US2 an ounce in after hours trading. Oil jumped sharply to top $US103 a barrel in New York for a rise of nearly 1%.
As a result of the bullish tone, our market is set for its second solid opening in a row with the share price futures contract up by more than 40 points.
Yesterday the ASX 200 Index rose 53.2 points, or 1% to 5463.8, while the All Ordinaries Index also added 1% to 5460.3.
Shares climbed to their highest point since June 2008, spurred by the bid for David Jones, the solid night on Wall Street and no sign of the return of risk fears which helped push tech related stocks lower.
The ASX 200 topped the March 7 closing high of 5,462.3 points. In earlier trade, the benchmark index reached as high as 5,477.4 points, its highest intra-day level since the week of June 16, 2008.
Iron ore prices rose to $US118.20 a tonne (the benefits though are being clipped by the higher dollar). But they are up 13% from the lows of early March.
