A hesitant, mixed week of activity on global stock markets last week and while the strong US jobs report for April on Friday night helped Wall Street to a solid gain for the day, we didn’t see a repeat of the gains from the week before.
US shares were up 0.2% for the week and would have been down had it not been for the solid day on Friday with the all three major indices gaining ground.
Eurozone shares were down 0.2% over the week, Chinese shares ended up 0.6% (on a short week’s trading because of holidays) after the sell off the week before and Australian shares lost 0.8% with energy and mining shares being the biggest drag.
Bond yields generally rose – the US 10 year bond ended at 2.53, the Australian 10-year bond yield ended at 1.79%.
Iron ore prices rose by a few cents to $US94.17 on Wednesday (with China closed until tomorrow,) from $US93.58 the previous Friday; oil prices were hit by rising US stockpiles and production (but edged higher on Friday on a lower dollar) and metal prices also fell (but rose Friday on the weaker dollar after the strong jobs report).
The $A ended around 70.10 US cents at the close on Saturday morning after dipping to a low of 69.85 US cents in trading.
The Nasdaq on Friday closed at a record, and the S&P 500 narrowly missed another of its, as investors bought stocks following the April employment report that was better than expected and which ended the two days rate tantrum that pushed the markets lower on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 127.22 points, or 1.6%, at 8,164, with e-commerce giant Amazon rising 3.2% after Warren Buffett revealed that Berkshire Hathaway had started buying the stock
The S&P 500 was up 28.12 points, or 1%, at 2,945.64, barely missing its own closing record at 2,845.83 while the Dow rose 197.16 points, or 0.8%, to 26,504.95.
For the week, the Nasdaq erased a weekly decline to end with a five-day climb of 0.2%, extending the index’s gains to a sixth straight week, while the S&P 500 index had a 0.2% weekly gain. The Dow, however, saw a 0.1% decline.
