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A rough end to the week in most markets around the world.

Oil prices slipped nearly 1% to below $US77 a barrel on Friday in the US, but then regained some ground in late after hours trading to end the week at $US77.47.

In Australia, figures on car sales, business investment and construction activity will be watched for their possible impact on whether the RBA will raise interest rates again at its December board meeting next week.

More records for the gold price this week as the futures price reached over $US1,150 an ounce.

Another week for the US economy in which statistics, speeches and interviews, all underlined just how tough it is going to be in the world’s biggest economy for the next year or more.

Singapore now sees its economy solidly back in the black in 2010 after confirming that it grew strongly in the third quarter.

The return of the resources boom was again confirmed by the news yesterday that the value of mining and energy projects under development in Australia had jumped 40% from April to October this year.

Nothing at all for interest rates from the September quarter Labour Price Index from the Australian Bureau of Statistics except to say that once again the public sector has been very generous with wage rises, compared to private industry.

Australia faces regular speculation about interest rate rises from the Reserve Bank and the banks because the economy is expected to continue growing strongly into 2010.

The National Australia Bank’s latest quarterly survey of confidence and conditions for small and medium businesses has shown a sharp improvement.

Wall Street rose on a mixture of positive and negative news overnight, ignoring the latter and focusing solely on the former.

A relatively quiet week for major events, but one which will be of interest is the update from American carmaker General Motors which will report third-quarter results this week.

Last week, Dr Shane Oliver, the AMP’s chief economist, went through all the reasons why the cyclical bull market in shares has further to run: the economic and profit recovery has further to go, inflation and interest rates remain low, and there is still plenty of cash sitting on the sidelines.