A rise today for the local market after a solid finish to futures trading on Saturday morning, our time, saw a 32 point (0.6%) gain penciled in for the ASX 200.
That was after eurozone shares and the US S&P 500 rose 0.4% on Friday, despite the record 16% plunge in US retail sales in April and a record 11.2% slump in US production.
For the week US shares fell 2.3%, Eurozone shares fell 4.3%, Japanese shares lost 0.7% and Chinese shares fell 1.3%.
Australian shares were hit too with concerns about trade tensions with China and worries about the banks but ended up 0.3% for the week thanks to Friday’s strong 1.4% rise for the ASX 200; otherwise, the index would have been down more than 1% over the five days.
Bond yields were little changed. Copper prices fell, but the iron ore price rose above $US90/tonne and oil prices rose nearly 20% as oil production fell (especially in the US) and demand rose (especially fr petrol in the US).
The Australian dollar fell on Friday on a US dollar pushed higher by safe-haven buying. The Aussie lost more than 1.1 US cents for the week.
Wall Street closed higher on Friday after swinging between gains and losses as investors weighed worries about China-US trade relations and the rotten economic data.
Friday’s US data for retail sales and industrial output was overwhelmingly weak.
US retail sales plunged by a record 16.4% in April and fell 16.2% excluding automobile sales and petrol prices after sales slumped by a revised 8.3% in March, up from the originally reported 8.7% drop.
The data showed that retail sales tumbled in every category except online shopping. It was the worst back-to-back declines in retail sales in modern American history and much worse than the 12.5% slump forecast in a poll by MarketWatch.com.
At the same time, industrial production slumped sharply as well, down a record 11.2% as manufacturing output fell by a steeper 13.7%.
The Federal Reserve data revealed the most severe plunge on record last month with output from America’s factories, mines and utilities battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The data came after U.S. President Donald Trump again turned up trade tensions with China by moving to block semiconductor shipments to China’s Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers.
It was a typical diversionary tactic as he remains under growing pressure about his inept handling of the C)VID-19 crisis in America.
China was swift to respond with a report saying it was ready to put US companies on an “unreliable entity list,” according to the pro-Communist Party paper, Global Times.
Friday saw the Dow end up 60.08 points, or 0.25%, to 23,685.42, the S&P 500 add 11.2 points, or 0.39%, to 2,863.7 and the Nasdaq close up 70.84 points, or 0.79%, to 9,014.56.
The S&P 500 fell 2.3%, for its biggest weekly loss since the week of March 20. The Dow dropped 2.7% for the week while the Nasdaq lost 1.2% – their biggest weekly losses since the week ended April 3, according to FactSet.
