A flat finish to most global markets on Saturday morning after a week that was quite eventful at the end.
The Fed continued signalling of a likely start to reducing its balance sheet later this year (which means higher interest rates), but it was the US missile strike against Syria and then the surprisingly weak US jobs report for March that combined to lift uncertainty levels for investors by Friday.
The Fed’s policy will get another test tonight when chair Janet Yellen speaks and takes questions from her American audience and from Twitter (which sound like a bit of a first).
Eurozone shares rose 0.2% and the US S&P 500 slipped 0.1% on Friday in the wake of reaction to the attack on Syria and the confusing US jobs report with its weak headline payroll growth of just 98,000, but strong details and the lowest jobless rate – 4.5% since May 2007.
The impact on offshore markets from the Syrian missile strike was less than the Australian share market had fretted about on Friday (where a 0.5% gain in the market was largely wiped out by news of the attack).
So the ASX 200 futures rose 14 points or 0.2% pointing to a positive start to trade for the Australian share market later today.
For the week, US shares fell 0.3%, Eurozone and Australian shares were flat, Japanese shares lost 1.3% but Chinese shares rose 1.5%.
Bond yields and the $A fell to around 75 US cents, but oil and gold prices rose.
The S&P 500 gave up gains of as much as 0.3% during Friday’s session to end the day 0.1% lower at 2,355.54. For the week the index lost 0.3%.
It was a similar story for the Dow, which closed largely unchanged for the day, as well as for the week at 20,656.10, after having also being up 0.3% earlier in trading.
And the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also ended the day flat at 5,877.81 after reaching a session high of 5,892.06.
In Australia, the ASX 200 added 0.1% to 5862.5, ending the week effectively flat, down by less than 2 index points.
The All Ordinaries index also added 0.1% on Friday, which was also its total gain over the week.
