A cautious start to the week in Asia today with all eyes on OPEC and a series of meetings starting today.
That was after a holiday impacted mixed close on Friday in the US and Europe, led by a nasty 4% plus slide in oil futures.
Eurozone shares gained 0.2% on Friday and the US S&P 500 rose 0.4% despite a 4.2% fall in the oil price on scepticism OPEC will agree to cut output at its much anticipated meeting Wednesday night, our time.
Despite the gains in US shares the ASX 200 futures were flat, perhaps due to the fall in the oil price. That is pointing to a flat start to trade for the Australian share market late today.
Last week saw the rally in shares continue helped by good global data, rising commodity prices and ongoing optimism regarding Donald Trump’s stimulus plans.
As a result rises all round with US shares up 1.4%, Eurozone shares up 0.9%, Japanese shares rising 2.9%, Chinese shares by 3% and Australian shares ending with a 2.8% gain after Friday’s 0.4% rise.
The main drag though is the continuing rise in the $US which has broken out to its highest level against an average of major currencies since 2003.
Commodity prices rose making the latest bout of US dollar strength more positive than seen in 2014.
Despite the rising $US, the $A rose, ending at 74.43 US cents on Saturday morning, helped along by higher commodity prices. Bond yields continued to rise in the US and Australia.
Wall Street ended a holiday-shortened session with gains on Friday, with major indexes extending the recent string of record closes and chalking up their third straight weekly gains.
Trading volume was light on Friday, with many traders away following the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.
The Dow rose 68.96 points, or 0.36%, to 19,152.14, while the S&P 500 rose 8.61 points, or 0.39%, to 2,213.33. The Nasdaq rose 18.24 points, or 0.3%, to 5,398.92.
All three indexes hit new records, as did the Russell 2000 index of small-cap shares, which rose 0.2% on the day, pushing its winning streak to a 15th straight session. This is the longest stretch of daily gains for the index since February 1996.
For the week, both the Dow and the Nasdaq rose 1.5%, while the S&P gained 1.4%. The Russell climbed 2.3% for the week.
Since the election, the S&P is up 3.4%, and it has risen in 10 of the past 14 sessions.
In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.2% to end at 342.45 on Friday.
The Stoxx 600 closed up the week by 0.9%. It has now risen for three straight weeks On Friday, Germany’s DAX 30 ended up 0.1% higher at 10,699.27, while France’s CAC 40 added 0.2% to 4,550.27. The UK’s FTSE 100 rose 0.2% to 6,840.75.
In Australia, a solid session on Friday saw the ASX200 close above 5500 points for the first time in three months, thanks once again to the miners.
The benchmark index added 2.8%, or 148 points, over the week to 5508, after adding 23 points on Friday.
BHP climbed 10% over the five sessions, while Rio added 7.7%, and South32 also rose 10%. Woodside climbed 5.8% (there will be a fall today). But gold miners were hit by the sagging price and Newcrest fell 5.8%
The big banks did their bit this week, climbing around 1% each. Telstra was up 2%.
But Boral was the week’s big loser in the wake of its as it announcement of a multi-billion dollar US acquisition, accompanied by a multi-billion dollar capital raising. The stock fell sharply, by 17% after an institutional placement was arranged and trading was restarted.
