Australian shares are heading for a flat start today on the ASX after Wall Street ended listless on Friday and US bond yields fell sharply, dropping well below the 3% level for the 10 year security that worried investors early last week.
Eurozone shares rose 0.3% on Friday and the US S&P 500 rose a tiny 0.1%. That was despite the record result from Amazon after hours on Thursday and good results from Exxon Mobil and Chevron on Friday.
But reflecting the weak US lead, ASX 200 futures were unchanged at the close on Saturday pointing to a weak start to trade for the ASX this morning.
In last week’s Anzac Day-shortened trading week, the ASX 200 index finished at 5953.6 with a 42.8 point, up 0.7% on Friday. That saw the index rise 84.8 points or 1.5%.
Local investors will be watching AMP with news on the future of its embattled chair, Catherine Brenner in the air, while interim results this week from the ANZ tomorrow and NAB on Thursday, and the annual from Macquarie on Friday (see separate story) will drive much of the activity
Globally sharemarkets were most flat to a toucher firmer last week. Eurozone shares rose 0.5% and Japanese and Australian shares rose 1.4% but US shares were flat despite good earnings results (see separate earnings story) and Chinese shares fell 0.1%.
Despite a mid-week jump, US bond yields were flat in the US, down slightly in Europe on some soft EU member GDP data and up slightly in Australia.
The US dollar continued its recovery and had its best week for three months, and this weighed on commodity prices and the Australian dollar which ended at 75.81 US dollars and just off four month lows earlier in the week.
On Wall Street, the Dow fell 11.15 points, or less than 0.1%, to 24,311.19 at the close early Saturday, our time.
The S&P 500 index closed up 2.97 points to 2,670.91, a gain 0.1%. and the Nasdaq Composite Index inched up by 1.12 point to 7,119.80, to remain virtually unchanged on the day.
For the week, the Dow fell 0.6% and the Nasdaq lost 0.4%. The S&P closed down a mere 0.01%, however, that was the trio’s first weekly decline of the past three.
Amazon shares climbed 3.6% a day after the e-commerce giant reported a quarterly profit more than doubled. There had been pre-market talk about how the result would boost trading on Friday.
It did for a while and the shares hit an all-time intraday record of $US1,638.10 in early trading, but then lost ground and ended below its closing record at $US1,598.39.
Mexican fast food group Chipotle saw its shares surge 29% on hopes it is close to ending years of weak results and food quality concerns. That made it the biggest gainer on the S&P 500to a 29 per cent weekly gain and left it the biggest gainer on the S&P 500.
The worst was copper miner Freeport-McMoRan was the worst performer down 21% for the week as it encountered more problems in Indonesia with the government demands for an upgraded set of environmental changes in the area of tailings disposal.
Treasury bond yields fell for a second straight session on Friday as the impetus behind the gains earlier in the week disappeared
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield fell 3.2 basis points to 2.959%, trimming the weeklong rise to 1 basis point. The benchmark bond hit more than a four-year high of 3.03% on Wednesday, the third day in a row of 3% plus yields.
The 2-year bond yield more sensitive to the outlook for official interest rates, gave up 0.6 basis point to end at 2.484%, trimming the weeklong yield climb to 2.7 basis points.
The yield on the 30-year bond meanwhile, fell by 4.8 basis points to 3.126%, leaving it lower by 1.2 basis points for the week.
