A solid start for the ASX today after Wall Street ended higher on Friday and enjoyed small gains for the week.
The ASX 24 futures market finished the week with a 39 point gain and down from 45 points earlier in the overnight session.
That was a better performance than in the ASX on Friday.
The ASX 200 shed 33.5 points, or 0.5% to close at 6176.8 on Friday. The market still managed to add 1.2% across the week, with hopes of a November interest rate cut helping it hit seven-month highs on Thursday and continue a stellar October.
That was after European shares rose on the day – by 1.4% but the US S&P 500 faded somewhat after an initial 0.9% surge on the back of strong retail sales data for September.
US shares rose just 0.2% for the week and Chinese shares rose 2.4% but Eurozone shares fell 0.7% (Friday’s rise clipping the loss) and Japanese shares fell 0.9%.
Australian shares rose 1.2% and were boosted by the RBA signalling further interest rate easing ahead and lower for even longer interest rates which pushed the ASX 200 to its highest level since early March.
Bond yields fell with the Australian 10-year bond yield falling to its lowest since April on the back of prospects for more aggressive RBA bond buying.
Oil and iron ore prices rose on Friday but copper, silver, and gold fell.
The Australian dollar fell on the back of a rise in the $US and expectations for more RBA easing.
On Wall Street, the Dow rose 112.11 points, or 039%, to 28,606.31, the S&P 500 gained 0.1%, to end at 3,483.81 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 42.32 points, or 0.36%, to 11,671.56.
For the week, the Dow edged up a tiny 0.1%, the S&P 500 rose 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.8%.
