The Australian stockmarket will start the new month and quarter on a down note after another slide in global iron ore prices and a further falls on Wall Street and in Europe on the last trading day of the March quarter.
Local investors will be shaken by yet another slide in iron ore prices and all the euphoria about a 9% rise in the ASX200 in the quarter will vanish very quickly.
Iron ore prices hit yet another all time low overnight – down to $US51.35, a level that will put additional pressure on companies like Fortescue, from $US52.69.
The dip overnight took the fall in the three months to March to a massive 28% and the price back to levels last seen in 2004-05 according to Metal Bulletin data.
This fall, on top of a stronger US dollar, weaker gold and oil prices and a fall of around 1% on Wall Street (and bigger losses in Europe) pushed share price futures on the ASX 200 down by close to 40 points.
That was after yesterday’s 45 point rise in the index which took the performance for the quarter to the best for decades – a rise of 9%.
What many of this morning’s stories about that surge – the best for the first quarter since 1991 (and the best for any quarter since the 3rd quarter of 2009), failed to mention was that the rise was due to the 6% plus jump in February.
The Aussie dollar finished 2014 around 82 US cents and this morning’s figure of just over 76 cents means the fall has been more than 7.5%, which has gone nowhere to offsetting the slide in iron ore prices in the same time.
In New York, the West Texas crude contract for May ended at $US47.60 a barrel, down $US1.08, or 2.2%. The price lost 4.3% for the month and 10.6% for the quarter.
In London, May Brent crude futures lost $US1.18, or 2.1%, to close at $US55.11 a barrel, with prices down 11.9% for the month and 3.9% for the quarter.
Comex gold for June, the most active contract, fell by $US2.10, or 0.2%, to settle at $US1,183.20 an ounce in New York. For the month, prices lost around 2.5% and about 0.1% for the quarter.
Comex May silver fell 7.6 cents, or 0.5%, to $US16.598 an ounce. Prices were up around 0.3% for the month, and more than 6% for the quarter.
Comex copper in New York lost 4.2 cents, or 1.5% overnight, to end the month $US2.74 a pound, up 1.8% higher for the month, but down for the quarter.
On Wall Street the Dow lost 200.19 points, or 1.1%, to end the quarter at 17,776.12, and down nearly 0.3% for the quarter.
The S&P 500 fell 18.35 points, or 0.9%, at 2,067.89, but it still managed a quarterly gain of 0.4%. the Nasdaq fell 0.9% to 4,901 points to be up around 3% for the quarter.
In Europe the Stoxx 600 index jumped 16%, marking its best quarterly gain since the 17.8% rally in the third quarter of 2009. Gerrmany’s DAX 30 index fell 1% yesterday, but soared 22% in the quarter, the strongest gain since the second quarter of 2003.
France’s CAC 40 index erased 1% to 5,033.64, trimming its quarterly advance to 17.8%.
London’s FTSE 100 index dropped 1.7% overnight Tuesday. The index rose 3.2% for the quarter, the biggest rise since a 4.4% rally logged in the last quarter of 2013.
In Asia the MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose almost 7% in the March quarter, outperforming the 3% gain in the MSCI World the same period.
The Shanghai index jumped by just under 18%, Tokyo by around 9.9%, the Philippines was up 9%, South Korea’s market rose 6% and India (which surged in 2014) slowed in the first quarter to add less than 2%.
