An upbeat end to the week, especially on Wall Street which came home on Thursday and Friday with a wet sail.
But without those gains on Thursday and Friday Wall Street would have suffered yet another down week. As it was the Nasdaq fell over the week as tech stocks remain under pressure.
Thanks to news of low level talks between the US and China next week on their trade war, investors changed their tune and thought positively instead of gloomily as they did early on.
Fears about Turkey were forgotten, but not in Europe where markets lost 1.5% over the week but US shares ended up 0.6% for the week and Australian shares rise 1% to a new 10 year high.
Japanese shares eased 0.1% and Chinese shares lost 5.2% – not because of trade tensions but because of an official crack down on a drug regulation and quality standard that saw share prices of major Chinese pharma companies fall, especially on Friday.
The US dollar was easier and this helped the Aussie make it back above 73 US cents (73.13) after falling to near 72 cents earlier in the week.
The S&P 500 closed 0.3% higher, the Dow added 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.1% on the day.
Over the week, the Dow was up 1.4%, the S&P 500 index climbed 0.6% for the week, but the Nasdaq fell 0.3%.
It hadn’t been for Thursday’s solid rally, the market would have lost ground over the week yet again and closed in the red.
