For a second successive week, the Australian market was one of the stronger performers globally last week.
While the Tokyo market recovered with a 3.9% gain after sliding in preceding weeks, the local market added 1.5% in value last week thanks to the flow of higher dividends and some positive profits.
In contrast, US and Chinese sharemarkets both fell 0.1%, while Eurozone shares ended up 0.4%.
UK shares jumped 2.6%, German shares lost 0.1% and the French market was up 0.9%. Europe’s Stock 600 index is up 4.2% so far this month.
Australian shares are now up more than 7% from the lows at the start of the month, thanks mostly to better-than-forecast earnings results and higher dividends which have lifted investor confidence.
The ASX 200 Index rose 82.4 points over the past week, or 1.5% to 5438.7, while the All Ordinaries Index also rose 1.5% to 5449.4.
The market added a solid half a per cent on Friday.
The ASX 200 has now risen 4.8% this month and is now ahead 1.6% for the year so far, after the 3.3% loss in January (which was exceeded by the 3.5% rise the week before last).
Bond yields here and elsewhere were little changed over the week, but commodity prices saw some strength with a strong rise in oil prices (partly due to poor US weather) and higher metal prices, led by gold and silver and copper.
The Aussie dollar fell on the poor news from China to end at 89.71 USc early yesterday and it was little changed over the week.
US stocks finished mostly lower for the week on Friday night, our time, as the main index, the Standard & Poor’s 500, ended two weeks of gains.
It finished last week just below its January 15 record close of 1,848.38.
The benchmark index dipped 3.53 points, or 0.2%, to close at 1,836.25, and lost 0.1% over the week.
The Dow lost 29.93 points, or 0.2%, to finish at 16,103.30 and 0.3% lower over the week.
But while the Nasdaq fell 4.13 points, or 0.1% on Friday to close at 4,263.41, it still rose 0.5% over the week – its third straight weekly gain.
Back home in Australia, the local market moved back to within six-year highs after shares climbed each day of the past week.
NAB rose 1.3%, Westpac added 1.7% and the ANZ ended up 2.1%, with the gains offsetting the 1% fall for the Commonwealth Bank.
Resources giant BHP Billiton rose 3.8% to $39.17, and Rio Tinto added 3.4% to $70.23.
Fairfax Media, jumped 25% to 90¢, after surprising with a bigger-than-expected half-year profit and a strong gain in digital revenues, especially from its newspaper paywalls.
Online jobs group Seek surged 22%, Breville Group shares ended 20% higher and AMP Ltd added 10.6% to a seven-month high of $5 as investors ignored more big losses from its wealth protection business and a downturn in earnings for the year.
In Japan, the rebound in Japanese shares followed the move by the country’s central bank to extend its current easing program by a year.
So the yen fell and shares surged – but investors again ignored the rapid worsening in the country’s trade deficit as export volumes remain sluggish.
The Nikkei’s 3.9% jump last week was its best weekly gain since last November, but it remains down 8.8% so far in 2014.
In commodities, Comex gold futures closed higher on Friday night in New York.
April Gold futures rose $US6.70, or 0.5%, to settle at $US1,323.60 an ounce.
For the week, prices finished around 0.4% higher for their third weekly gain in a row.
March silver advanced nearly 10c, or 0.5%, to $US21.78 an ounce — up by around 1.7% over the week.
And Comex March copper futures rose a cent to $US3.29 a pound, for a gain of just under 1% for the week.
In the oil and gas markets, US natural gas futures stood out for a second week, ending above $US6 on Friday, up 18% on the week thanks to the very cold weather across much of the Midwest, east and southern states of America.
Nymex April crude-oil futures, dipped 55c, or 0.5%, to settle at $US102.20 a barrel.
Oil prices, however, closed lower.
The March natural gas contracts expire at the close of trading this Wednesday and the April contracts will become the front-month contracts.
April natural gas settled at $US5.01 per million British Thermal Units (BTUs) on Friday, up 3.2%, or nearly 16c.
March natural gas tacked on 7c, or 1.2%, to settle at $US6.135 per million BTUs on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
US oil futures added around 1.9% over the week, while in London April Brent crude fell 45c, or 0.4% on Friday, to $US109.85 a barrel, up 0.7% for the week.
