ASX 200 futures fell 6 points or 0.1% overnight Friday as Wall Street slid on nerves about the Fed meeting this week and confusion about what is happening with the Greece bailout.
That’s pointing to a soft start for the local market later this morning.
But watch China where the country’s securities regulator has toughened its attack on illegal share trading and speculation financed by margin trading. Each time it does that it prompts a bout of market jitters before a recovery and rebound emerges.
Eurozone shares fell 1.4% on Friday night and the US S&P 500 lost 0.7% as concerns about Greece continued. There’s a growing belief that the situation with Greece could reach a major turning point this week.
In Asia the Chinese economic data was mixed to say the least, while fears about the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome saw the South Korean central bank cut interest rates to a new record low of 1.50% to try and help the economy handle a sharp slowdown in consumption.
Over the week US shares rose just 0.1%, Australian shares were up 0.8% and Chinese shares added 2.9%. European shares eased 0.2%, while Japanese shares and some other Asian markets dipped.
Bond yields mostly fell late in the week, especially in Germany where the yield on 10 year bunds peaked at 1%, but closed on Friday night at 0.83% as those fears about Greece returned.
Yields on Australian bonds however jumped 13 points on Friday to return to the 3.01% level they hit 10 days ago.
And despite stronger US economic data last week, the US dollar fell slightly and this helped some commodities and the Australian dollar, which finished around 77.30 cents early Saturday morning our time.
Attention will now focus on the big June Fed meeting Tuesday and Wednesday nights, our time, because of the possibility that the path of US interest rates will become clearer by around 6am Thursday, after the post meeting statement, economic forecasts and the media conference Fed chair Janet Yellen will conduct.
The Dow fell 140.53 points, or 0.78% to 17,898.84, the S&P 500 lost 14.75 points, or 0.7%, to 2,094.11 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 31.41 points, or 0.6% to 5,051.10.
For the week, the Dow was up 0.3%, the S&P 500 was up just 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.3%, its third straight week of decline.
In Australia the ASX 200 lost 0.2% or 11 points, to end at 5545.3, but rose 0.8% over the week. The All Ords also lost 0.2% on Friday, but rose 0.8% for the week as well.
