Stockmarkets in Asia, led by Australia, face a difficult start to the week with the US government’s partial shutdown to contend with.
US bond yields spiked higher on Friday to 13 month highs around 2.66%, the US dollar sold off (dragging the Aussie back over 80 US cents at one stage for a second time in a week).
Bond yields are likely to drift higher and the greenback lower today while the uncertainty continues.
Our market was up around 26 points in trading on the ASX 200 futures market, but that was well before the shutdown hit around 4pm Saturday and can’t be considered an accurate guide to what happens today.
That was after the ASX 200 index slipped 9 points on Friday to end the week 6006 points, and 1.1%, over the week.
Friday saw the fourth consecutive daily fall for the ASX 200 in contrast to the bullishness seen on Wall Street.
Gold rose on Friday but that couldn’t stop the first losing week in five, oil weakened a touch – but the question now is what does the partial shutdown do to investor confidence.
Friday saw Wall Street rise on Friday to finish the week strongly – fears of the government shutdown failed to dampen bullish investor sentiment many of whom believed, oddly, that President Trump would spring a last minute deal. He didn’t.
Negotiations continued over the weekend but there are no signs of President Trump wanting to strike a deal.
But there’s nothing like reality to change sentiment in the markets and trading today and tonight is likely to be nervous.
The Dow was up 54 points, or 0.2%, to 26,072; the Nasdaq Composite Index added 40 points, or 0.6%, to 7,336 while the S&P 500 rose 12 points, or 0.4%, to 2,810.
The Dow and Nasdaq were both up 1% for the week, and the S&P was up 0.9% over the same period.
The Dow stood ended below its record close, but the S&P and Nasdaq rallied to hit fresh all-time highs.
All three indexes clinched their third straight weekly advance.
