The ASX is looking at a solid start today despite a mixed close on Wall Street on Friday and more tensions between the US and China, triggered by President Donald Trump.
That was after eurozone shares rose 0.4% on Friday and the US S&P 500 closed up 0.1%, with better than expected jobs data helping but tech stocks were dragged down by continuing US/China tensions.
ASX 200 futures rose 42 points, or 0.7%, suggesting that Friday’s 0.6% fall on Friday, which was partly driven by nervousness ahead of the US payroll report, will reverse today.
Despite Friday’s fade share markets rose over the last week helped by a combination of better than expected earnings in the US, good economic data and positive vaccine news offsetting US/China tensions.
This saw the US share market rise 2.5% for the week which left it just 1% below its February high. Eurozone shares rose 2.4%, Japanese shares gained 2.9% and Chinese shares rose 0.3%.
The positive global lead helped offset the blow to the Australian economic rebound from Melbourne’s stage 4 lockdown and Australian shares rise 1.3% with strong gains in energy, material, IT, telco and consumer staple stocks offsetting weakness in financials.
Bond yields generally rose slightly. Oil, gold and iron ore prices rose but the copper price fell.
The $A rose slightly but gave up most of its gains for the week as the $US rebounded from oversold conditions on the back of a stronger than expected rise in July payrolls.
The Aussie dollar ended around 7.57, down more than 1% on the day.
Friday saw the Dow end 46.50 points, or 0.2%, higher at 27,433.48, after flipping to positive in the final hour of trade. The S&P 500 index eked out a gain of 2.12 points, or 0.1%, to close at 3,351.28. The Nasdaq fell 97.09 points, or 0.9%, ending at 11,010.98, after trading down more than 1.5% at one stage.
For the week, the Dow gained 3.8%, its biggest percent gain since June 5. The S&P 500 rose 2.5% and the Nasdaq also climbed 2.5% over the five sessions.
