The Australian share market will start flat and wondering where to go later today with fears about the impact of Hurricane Irma foremost, along with the now usual tensions about North Korea and the sell off in metals late last week.
There will be no guide from US markets which ended Friday on a mixed note, with both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq in the red but the Dow slightly higher as Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida over the weekend.
Eurozone shares rose 0.1% on Friday and the US S&P 500 fell 0.1%. Reflecting this basically flat global lead, ASX 200 futures fell 2 points or less than 0.1% pointing to a flat start to trade here later this morning, although this may be impacted if North Korea does undertake another missile test.
Global share markets mostly fell the last week. Eurozone shares rose 0.1%, US shares lost 0.4%, Japanese shares fell 2.1%, Chinese shares fell 0.1% and Australian shares dropped 0.9%.
Bond yields fell further helped by dovish comments from ECB President Draghi, a downwards revision to the ECB’s inflation forecasts and worries about the impact of hurricanes on the US.
The Aussie dollar rose back above 80 US cent mark as the greenback again fell. Oil and gold prices rose but iron ore and other metals fell.
On Wall Street the S&P 500 slipped 0.1% to 2,462 thanks to weaker energy stocks, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 0.7% to 6,357, down 1.2% on the week.
The Dow finished the week more or less flat at 21,789, and down 0.9%. In individual stocks, credit information group, Equifax saw its shares plunge 13.7% following the news of a data breach affecting 143 million Americans’ personal information, such as social security, drivers license and credit card numbers.
Equifax is a major credit data group in Australia, having taken over Veda at the start of last year.
Ahead of its product launch on Tuesday in the US (iPhone 8), Apple was down 1.6%.
In Australia, the ASX ended a week dominated again by worries about North Korea with a loss, while the Australian dollar soared to a two-year high.
The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.3% on Friday to 5,672.6, taking losses for the week to 0.9%.
The CBA shares lost 3% over the week, NAB lost 1%, ANZ fell 2.5% and Westpac dropped 1.7%
Miners had a better week, however, with the sector gaining 0.5% as Rio Tinto and Newcrest rose 0.3% and South 32 jumped 6.1%. The sell on Friday in most metals will change that today.
