The ASX is heading for a small dip at the start later today after a weak end to futures trading on Saturday morning, our time, despite Wall Street ending the day and week with gains.
Eurozone shares rose 0.4% on Friday and the US S&P 500 added 0.9% helped along by (probably misplaced) hopes for more US fiscal stimulus with President Trump now saying he wants a bigger fiscal package than the Democrats.
Despite the positive global lead, ASX 200 futures fell 5 points, or 0.1%, pointing to flat start to trade for the Australian share market today.
The ASX had a strong 5.4% gain last week off the back of the budget billions to be spent supporting jobs and companies. That was the largest gain of all major markets last week.
US shares gained 3.8% over the week, Eurozone shares were up 2.8%, Japanese shares rose 2.6% and Chinese shares gained 2%.
This week sees the return of China from the start of the month-long holiday and a slew of data for the month of September, the third quarter, and the first 9 months of the year.
At the same time, the US Presidential and Congressional elections are entering the last three weeks and President Trump’s weekend rallies once again highlighted the confusion associated with his campaign.
Wall Street seems to be more accepting of a win by the Democratic challenger Joe Biden with last week’s solid gains coming despite the confusion about Donald Trump’s health and many of his tweets and insults.
Wall Street also seems to believe in the possibility of a new stimulus bill being agreed to by Congress when the Republicans don’t have the votes in the Senate they control for big-spending bills – especially Donald Trump’s claims for a $US2 trillion-plus spend.
US investors remained optimistic over prospects for another round of fiscal stimulus from Congress, with major benchmarks posting their best week since the US summer.
The Dow rose 161.39 points, or 0.6%, to close at 28,586.90, while the S&P 500 added 30.30 points, or 0.9%, to 3,477.13. The Nasdaq gained 158.96 points, or 1.4%, to end at 11,579.94.
For the week, the Dow was up 3.3%, while the S&P 500 was up 3.8% and the Nasdaq jumped 4.6%.
That marked the strongest weekly rise for the blue-chip index since August 7 and the best for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq since July, according to FactSet.
