A breather on Wall Street ahead of the Thanksgiving holidays should see the Australian market take a brief pause today on its quest to regain the losses triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns.
Up to Wednesday, the ASX had recouped almost all of the losses suffered this calendar year after Wall Street’s blue-chip index reached historic heights as November magic market boom continued on Tuesday of this week.
The local benchmark S&P/ASX200 index again broke through the 6,700 points level in early dealings on Wednesday before settling back to finish up 0.5% at 6,683. This was just shy of the close of 6690.6 on January 2, the first trading day of 2020.
Overnight trading Wednesday saw a 8 point gain for the futures market, indicating a small rise for the ASX 200 at the start of trade today.
That was after a mixed day for Wall Street with the Dow and S&P 500 weak and the Nasdaq climbing and hitting a new all time high in trading of 12,114.77 before settling back.
The Dow ended down more than 173 points at 29,872.47, a loss of nearly 0.6%, as sustaining a position above 30,000 points proved too hard. The S&P 500 also dipped – down 0.16% or 5.76 points at 3,629.65.
Nasdaq though ended up nearly half a per cent or 57.62 points at 12,094.40.
Energy and financials should help the local market today after oil (see separate story) had another solid session. The gains came despite more weakness in the US economy and especially the labour market.
Gold marked time and didn’t test the $US1,800 an ounce level as many had feared. It finished around $US1,805 an ounce. That should help steady the local gold sector.
The ASX 200 is up more than 10% so far this month in what is turning out to be the best November in a century.
With Wall Street closed tonight for the holiday and limited trading on Friday, its likely the local market will steady without a lead from offshore.
But all it will take is a few eager beavers willing to chase the banks especially (which are now the big drivers) and we could quite easily see those 2020 losses recouped by the close on Friday.
Wednesday saw ANZ lift 3% to $23.66, Commonwealth Bank shares close 1.49% higher at $82.37, National Australia Bank shares jump 3.09% to $24.05, and Westpac advance 2.15% to $20.89.
