Wall St Ends Volatile November On A High

By Glenn Dyer | More Articles by Glenn Dyer

So how will markets jump in the wake of the G20 meeting in Argentina between President Trump and President Xi of China?

The deal is effectively a three-month truce in the trade war which takes the deadline out to next March.

It will see a solid rise in markets in Asia and Europe later today (unless there is some sort of unexpected bad news).

Of more interest over the whole week for US investors will be the outcome of Thursday’s OPEC meeting and then the Friday release of the November jobs report and what that means for US Federal Reserves and interest rates in 2019.

Russia and Saudi Arabia agreed to extend into 2019 their agreement to manage the oil market, known as OPEC+, although the two countries have yet to agree on any fresh output cuts.

The best bet is for a cap of around 1.3 million barrels a day

(Remember that trading on Wall Street will be suspended on Wednesday for a day of mourning for the latest President George H.W. Bush. The NYSE and Nasdaq both said their markets will be closed on Wednesday and will observe a moment of silence on Monday).

Wall Street rose on Friday, concluding the best week in nearly seven years, thanks to growing hopes of a trade truce between the US and China and signs the Fed is softening its outlook on interest rates.

The S&P 500 rose 22.41 points, or 0.8%, to 2,760.17, Nasdaq added 57.45 points, or 0.8%, to 7,330.54 while the Dow jumped T199.62 points, or 0.8%, to 25,538.46 after being down by as much as 72 points at the opening.

Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq logged their best weekly performance since December 2011 while the blue-chip index posted its strongest week since November 2016..

The S&P notched its largest weekly advance since December 2011 with a gain of 4.8%. It was the best week in two years for the Dow, up 5.1% (when President Trump won the 2016 election), and seven years for the Nasdaq, up 5.6%.

Thanks to those strong gains November turned out to be a solid month for Wall Street. The S&P increased 1.8%, and the blue-chip Dow rose 1.7%. The volatile month for technology shares (especially Apple) saw limited gains for the Nasdaq, which eked out a 0.3% gain.

But for the year to date Nasdaq is still up 6.2%, the Dow, 3.3% and the S&P 500 is up 3.2%.

Eurozone shares rose 1.1% last week, Japanese shares 3.3% and. Chinese shares rose 0.9% over the five trading days.

Eurozone shares were up 1.8% in November, Chinese shares lost around 3.3% – (Shanghai) but the Nikkei added half a percent.

US bond yields eased last week and in November.

The 10-year Treasury note yield fell 2 basis points to 3.015%, its lowest close since mid-September and down 3.1 basis points for the week. On a monthly basis, the yield tumbled 14.1 basis points, its largest such move since August last year.

The yield on the two-year bond – which is more influenced by short-term events fell 6.4 points to 2.811% in November, while the 30-year bond yield dipped 8.7 points over the month to 3.310%.

About Glenn Dyer

Glenn Dyer has been a finance journalist and TV producer for more than 40 years. He has worked at Maxwell Newton Publications, Queensland Newspapers, AAP, The Australian Financial Review, The Nine Network and Crikey.

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