Except Australia, it was a good week for most markets.
US shares rose 0.9% to finally surpass their January high, Eurozone shares and Japanese shares up 1.5% and Chinese shares jumped 3%, shaking off the fears from the week before.
Australian shares though fell 1.5% on the back of political uncertainty which was resolved Friday afternoon, helping the ASX 200 end the day with a small 3 point rise.
Bond yields fell a bit in the US and Australia, were unchanged in Japan and were up a bit in Germany. Events in Turkey seem to have cooled and the pressure came off the lira and other emerging markets currencies as the greenback weakened.
Gold, oil and industrial metal prices (led by copper) rose but the iron ore price fell.
The US dollar slipped nearly 1% over the week (half that on Friday) as safe haven demand slowed, and this saw the $A rise slightly despite initially falling on the back of political turmoil. The Aussie dollar ended around 73.20, up marginally from a week earlier.
On Wall Street the S&P 500 ended 0.6% higher at 2874.69, just ahead of the previous record close on January 26 of 2,872.87 and was up 0.9% over the week.
The Nasdaq also closed out the week at a record high, rising 0.9% on Friday and 1.7% over the course of the week to reach 7,945.98.
The Dow missed out on the record setting run rising half a per cent on Friday to 25,790.35, and taking its five-day gain 0.47%.
For the year so far the Nasdaq is up 15.1%, the S&P 500 is up 7.5% and the Dow has risen 4.3%. By way of contrast the ASX w200 is up just 3% year to date.
Wall Street also encountered considerable political drama, which included President Donald Trump on Friday calling off the secretary of state’s planned visit to North Korea, and Trump publicly arguing with his own justice department following the news in Tuesday of Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen implicating the president while pleading guilty to eight federal charges and a guilty verdict for former campaign Chairman Paul Manafort on eight charges.
