The Australian market is looking at a sharp fall when trading resumes this morning after a nasty fall on Friday night in the ASX 24 futures.
The fall came after a mixed session on Wall Street – tech stocks rose but the rest of the market weakened as fears about the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the US – especially in Florida, Texas and Arizona, and in countries like Brazil, India and Indonesia raised renewed fears about the strength of economic activity across the globe.
The continuing rise in COVID-19 cases in Victoria will also worry local investors after Premier Daniel Andrews reversed a part of the state’s lockdown for three weeks.
Eurozone shares gained 0.3% on Friday but the US S&P 500 fell 0.6% on the new concerns about a “second wave” of coronavirus cases in some US states.
Reflecting the negative US lead ASX futures fell 78 points or 1.3% pointing to a weak start to trade on Monday for the Australian share market.
That was after the ASX 200 held on Friday for a rise of just 6.1 points, or 0.1%, to end at 5,942.6.
That left the market up 1.6% for the week.
At one stage on Friday the index was up 1.1% in the wake of the rebound in retail figures in May. But all but 6 points of that rise was lost in the afternoon session.
Wall Street’s weak finish on Friday won’t help locally today.
Preliminary Australian Bureau of Statistics figures last week showed retail sales jumped by a record 16.3% for the month as shoppers embraced the lifting of coronavirus lockdowns. That was after the 17% slump in April.
