So will Australian investors take a punt and push the ASX higher later today after trading resumes even though the overnight futures market was sluggish in Friday night’s short session down a point fall at the close?
It was an unusual reaction to a solid night for commodities, especially iron ore and oil and record finishes on Wall Street for the Nasdaq and S&P 500.
Eurozone shares ended 0.2% higher as did the US S&P 500 helped by post Thanksgiving retail optimism and higher oil shares.
Thursday’s sell off in China didn’t last and market indexes ended in the green for the day, but still down 0.4% for the week.
US shares rose 0.9% helped by retailers and oil shares, Eurozone shares also added 0.9%, Japanese shares rose 0.7% and Australian shares rose 0.4%.
Overall it was a better week everywhere and yet sentiment here was gloomy late in the week.
Bond yields were flat to down helped by ongoing concerns about low inflation in the US and this also weighed on the $US.
Most commodity prices rose and this along with a weaker $US saw the Aussie dollar half a cent higher over the week.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 ended the day above 2,600 for the first time on Black Friday and joined the Nasdaq Composite in closing at a record high.
The S&P 500 ended 0.2% higher at 2,602.42 on Friday and was up 0.9% for the week — its best five-day advance in almost two months.
The Dow rose 0.9% over the week to 23,557.99 clocking its best week since October 20. The Nasdaq Composite index rose 0.3% on Friday for a weekly gain of 1.6% its largest for 12 weeks according to FactSet data.
The ASX 200 index eased 4 points on Friday at 5983, trimming the week’s gains to 25 points, or 0.4%. The All Ordinaries index matched those moves to close at 6063 points.
