Our market is heading for a hesitant start this morning after a mixed session on markets offshore overnight – although the Chinese market’s 2.1% gain yesterday stood out because improved price gains for housing.
Wall Street’s major markers ended at 2016 highs this morning, but the ASX futures market has the local market starting with a gain of less than 10 points – so the guide from the rest of Asia will be important.
Gold eased, oil rose and the Aussie dollar fell under 76 US cents to trade around 75.80 in early Asian trading this morning.
Iron ore will help locally today with another solid gain overnight which pushed the price back closer to $US60 a tonne.
According to the Metal Bulletin, the price rose 2.3% to $US58.82 a dry tonne, after a 2.7% gain last Friday.
With 9 days to go in March and the quarter, iron ore prices are up 35%.
The rise was preceded by strong gains in iron ore futures trading in Asia.
The SGX AsiaClear contract for May jumped to $US55.95 a ton in Singapore, while on the Dalian Commodity Exchange most-active futures closed at the highest level in a year.
Helping push iron ore prices higher was a solid report on Chinese property prices for February. And while prices are rising, the reality is that Chinese steel production is falling and iron ore imports are weak.
New-home prices in China rose in 47 cities of the 70 major centres in China in February, up from 38 in January, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed yesterday.
Investment in real estate development reversed a two-year fall in January and February, with sales accelerating to 3% from a 1% rise throughout 2015.
Wall Street saw small gains overnight after a fall in major markets in Europe, such as London, France and Germany. Asian markets were mixed – Australia was down 16 points, but Shanghai stood out with the 2.1% rise off the back of the more promising house price data.
The Dow added 20 points, or 0.1%, to 17,622, for its seventh straight session of gains – its longest winning run since December 2014. The S&P 500 ended up 2 points, or 0.1%, to 2,051. The Nasdaq Composite was up 13 points, or 0.3%, to 4,808.
US crude oil futures rose with the West Texas Intermediate contract for April delivery climbing by 47 cents, or 1.2%, to settle at $US39.91 a barrel in New York. The contract expired at Monday’s settlement and this tend usually adds to market volatility.
May crude crude futures, which became the front-month contract, rose 38 cents, or 0.9%, to $US41.52 a barrel.
In London, May Brent crude finished the session at at $US41.54 a barrel, up 34 cents, up 0.8%. Oil prices shook off a firmer greenback.
And Comex gold futures ended lower overnight in response to the firmer US dollar.
April gold futures fell $US10.10, or 0.8%, to settle at $US1,244.20 an ounce.
