Great day for equities in New York, a lousy day for gold bugs which the metal copping a whack from complacent investors.

With London and Wall Street closed overnight, our market inched higher yesterday in something of a blindspot. Asian markets were also quiet, mostly for the same reason.

The coming week will see data on weak Australian business investment, especially in the resource sector, not so strong Japanese inflation and confirmation of weak US first quarter economic growth.

There will be a quiet start to this week for markets, despite another record setting finish on Wall Street on Saturday morning, our time.

Phew, saved by one imperfect number in an incomplete survey about the strength of part of the Chinese manufacturing sector, while a similar report also showed a stronger than expected reading from the Japanese manufacturing sector.

Real wages falling, consumer confidence tumbling – this is not what the Reserve Bank and many retailers really want to see is it?

Buried in yesterday’s minutes from the May board meeting of the Reserve Bank is a warning that the Australian economy faces a slowdown over the rest of this year.

Another day, another fall on Wall Street and another weak opening for the local market. The rollercoaster continued overnight with another triple digit fall the Dow.

With global iron ore prices falling under $US100 a tonne overnight, the Australian stockmarket is set to open higher this morning – that’s either fools paradise or a misreading of what happened here yesterday.

Central banks and the mid-month updates on the health of manufacturing in a number of major economies, especially China, will dominate the coming week.

Global markets will start the week on a guarded note this week after catching fright late last week with the surprise sell off on Wednesday and Thursday.

World iron ore prices are on the edge of slipping under $US100 a tonne and the latest two year low could come sometime this week after another fall in the mineral’s price on Friday night, our time.

The feeling of unease drifting over financial markets, grabbed Wall Street overnight for a second trading session, sending shares lower, and bond prices soaring as investors continued to chase safety in US Treasuries.

Now for the slide into negative growth in Japan this quarter, and beyond that, into a recession?

There seems to be a few clouds of doubt drifting over global stockmarkets – despite the succession of records on Wall Street, new six year highs for many European markets, and the succession of new highs for our big banks in the past month or so (especially the Commonwealth this week).