Another weak start for the ASX this morning after more bombast on trade from President Trump – this time a threat to widen his tariffs to all imports from China.
The overnight futures trading on the ASX 200 saw a 23 point slide on Friday night as Wall Street ignored a solid August jobs report and sold off.
The Aussie dollar closed just on 71.07 US cents on Saturday morning, a loss of 0.8 of a cent over the week – it touched a low of 71.02 in trading, the lowest it has been since January 2016.
More weakness can be expected today as the ripples from Trump’s trade threats shake markets in Asia.
Trade and other concerns helped wipe just on $50 billion from the market value of Australian shares last week.
The ASX 200 index lost 175.7 points, or 2.8%, to 6143.8, its worst five-day performance since February.
Not helping was the spreading global weakness in tech stocks (with the Trump administration whining about the unfairness of them all) and concerns about stretched valuations which hit local tech darlings.
Eurozone shares were flat on Friday, but US shares fell 0.2% after Trump repeated his threat to raise tariffs on all Chinese imports.
More weakness in commodity prices as a result of Trump’s blatherings will weaken sentiment today on the ASX as well.
That saw BHP as one of the biggest drags on the market last week. The miner trading ex-dividend on Thursday contributed a lot to the 5.8% fall last week, as did the weakness in commodity prices, especially copper and oil.
Rival Rio Tinto did a bit better, its shares down only 1.7%.
Copper and gold miner, OZ Minerals saw a fall of 6.1%, while Newcrest, a gold and copper miner, lost 2%.
Woodside shares fell 4.3% and Evolution Mining shares lost 4.3% as commodity prices remained under pressure all week.
Northern Star Resources was the best-performing stock on the index this week, rising 17.5% to $8.18.
The gold miner returned from a trading halt on Monday announcing it had successfully completed a $175 million placement to institutional investors, allowing it to fund its $US260 million acquisition of the Pogo gold mine in Alaska.
That was a rare good new story from the resources sector.
The weakness in US technology stocks spread to Australia as shares in Appen closed 10.4% lower, NEXTDC fell 15.8% to $5.97, Afterpay Touch shares lost 17.3% and Xero ended the week off 9.4%.
While the ANZ and Commonwealth Bank joined Westpac in raising their variable interest rates their shares didn’t respond positively.
ANZ shares lost 3.7%, while Commonwealth Bank shares closed down 1%. NAB, which has yet to announce a rate decision, saw its shares fall 1.7% while Westpac ended the week with its shares 2.6% lower.
CSL shares fell 35 on Friday and more than 7% last week.
