Our market will start with yet another loss this morning after a very mixed session on global markets.
The ASX 200 futures market was showing a loss of around 29 points at the close of trading this morning, meaning a subdued start locally.
Yet another fall in iron ore prices to $US38.30 a tonne overnight, won’t help local sentiment. But the rout in other commodities slowed, or reversed by tiny amounts – oil was one of those as it rose early, then sold off. Gold and copper were a touch higher.
Wall Street suffered a wild swing – up more than 200 points early as oil prices rose, then a 300 point plus fall as oil weakened in the US..
The Dow fell 0.4%, the S&P 500 lost 0.7% and the Nasdaq was hammered (as Apple shares fell), losing nearly 1.5%. January West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled at $3US7.16 a barrel in New York, down 35 cents, or 0.9%, after trading as high as $US38.99. January Brent crude in London fell 15 cents, or 0.4%, to $US40.11 a barrel.
Gold futures finished with a modest gain on Wednesday as the US dollar fell (pushing the Aussie dollar back over the 72 US cents)
February gold futures on Comex added $US1.20, or 0.1%, to settle at $US1,076.50 an ounce. It traded as high as $US1,085 and as low as $US1,068.70.
Comex silver prices rose, following a 1.5% decline on Tuesday. March silver picked up 7.3 cents, or 0.5%, to $US14.189 an ounce.
And Comex March copper tacked on 1.2 cents, or 0.6%, to $US2.066 a pound. In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 ended 0.4% lower at 364.19. Germany’s DAX 30 dropped 0.8% to 10,592.49, France’s CAC 40 fell 1% to 4,637.45.
London’s FTSE 100 eased 0.1% to 6,126.68. And in Australia, our market lost 0.5% yesterday with the ASX 200 ending on 5080.5, while the All Ordinaries also lost half a per cent at 5129.9.
