It is going to be a very cautious start to trading later today thanks to continuing nervousness about the tensions between the US and North Korea.
That was after share markets fell last week on the back of escalating fears around conflict with North Korea.
Those tensions wiped around $US1 trillion from the value of the world’s major stocks.
Reuters said that a Reuters Datastream index of more than 7,000 stocks across the globe saw its market capitalisation drop from a record high $US61.36 trillion on Monday to $60.43 trillion at the close on Thursday. Friday’s falls on some markets would have taken the value lower.
US shares were down 1.4%, Eurozone shares lost 2.6%, Japanese shares fell 1.5%, Chinese shares lost 1.6% and Australian shares fell 0.5% (thanks to the 1.2% slump on Friday).
Bonds in the US, Japan, Germany and the UK benefitted from a flight to safety and continuing low inflation readings in the US pushing yields down slightly.
Commodity prices were mixed though with oil down but copper, iron ore and gold up over the week. On Friday iron ore fell, but oil, gold and copper were higher on the day.
While the $US fell against the Yen and the Euro, the Aussie fell against all three to end around 78.90.
On Friday, eurozone shares fell 0.9%, but the US S&P 500 rose 0.1% reflecting some stabilisation after several days of falls on North Korean worries.
ASX 200 futures fell just 3 points or 0.1% on Friday night, indicating a flat start to trade later this morning after that big drop on Friday.
Wall Street edged higher on Friday, but it wasn’t enough to undo the damage inflicted by days of rising tensions between the US and North Korea that saw Wall Street endure its steepest weekly slide since March.
The Dow rose 14.31 points to close at 21,858.32. The S&P 500 gained 3.11 points, or 0.1%, to end at 2,441.32, supported by gains in consumer-discretionary, technology and health-care sectors.
The Nasdaq climbed 39.68 points, or 0.6%, to close at 6,256.56.
For the week, the Dow was down 1.1%, its biggest one-week drop since November. The S&P lost 1.4%, its worst week since March, while the Nasdaq posted a weekly loss of 1.5%, its worst since June.
Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks finished out the week 2.7% lower, its biggest one-week decline since February 2016.
Gold prices surged 2.5% over the week to $US1,290.79 a troy ounce — its biggest weekly gain in more than a year.
