The ASX is looking at a soft start today after a weak session on Wall Street on Friday.
The overnight futures market had the ASX 200 starting 12 points down this morning.
Investor caution will be reinforced by the October Reserve Bank board meeting tomorrow and expectations of a third rate cut for 2019.
Today also represents the end of the September quarter and September financial year (or half-year) for a host of companies like Westpac and CSR.
But there will be one result that investors are waiting for, agricultural chemicals group, Nufarm which is expected to reveal a weak outcome for 2018-19
The coming week also sees the Golden Week holiday across much of Asia and the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the creation of modern China on October 1, 1949. That means market activity and trading volumes will be reduced for much of the week.
Eurozone shares rose 0.5% on Friday, but the US S&P 500 fell 0.5% on the back of reports that the US was considering limits on portfolio investment flows into China.
Commodity prices fell and the Aussie dollar ended at 67.64 US cents, not much different to a week ago.
Last week the ASX 200 added 0.6% or 8.5 points, to close at 6716.1, reversing the falls seen on Thursday.
Despite the gain on Friday’s the index fell by 0.2% for the week, the first weekly decline since the middle of August.
“Australian shares were dragged lower by [weakness offshore] with telcos and resources stocks down sharply but with real estate, IT and consumer discretionary stocks helping to limit the decline,” AMP Capital’s head of investment strategy and chief economist Shane Oliver said in a note at the weekend.
