Wall St Hits Closes At Record Highs

By Glenn Dyer | More Articles by Glenn Dyer

A confident 25 point jump is expected when the ASX 200 re-opens this morning following another record close on Wall Street on Friday.

While eurozone shares fell 0.2% on Friday, the key US S&P 500 measure ended up 0.3% despite an initial fall after President Trump indicated he hadn’t yet agreed to a tariff roll back in his trade war with China.

Markets shrugged off those comments and the end result for the day though was all three main market measures closing at record highs.

The S&P 500 finished 0.26% higher on Friday at 3,093.08, a rise of 7.9 points on the day. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.48% to end at 8,475.31, a gain of 40.8 points, while the Dow rose a tiny 0.02% or 6.44 points to end at 27,681.24.

For the week, the Dow added 1.2% while the S&P 500 gained 0.8% and the Nasdaq advanced 1%.

Eurozone shares gained 1.9% last week, Japanese shares rose 2.4%, Chinese shares rose 0.5% and Australian shares gained 0.8%.

Bond yields rose sharply on more positive expectations for global growth.

Oil and metal prices rose too, but gold fell (see separate story) on falling safe-haven demand and the iron price slid further(see separate story). The Aussie dollar fell nearly half a cent to 68.60 US cents as the greenback made gains.

Following the positive US lead on Friday ASX 200 futures rose 27 points or 0.4% pointing to a positive start this morning

Friday saw the ASX 200 down by 2.5 points at 6,724.1, a fall of 0.04%. It ended up 0.8% or 55 points over the week.

The All Ordinaries closed 3.7 points lower Friday, down or 0.05%, at 6833.2, and rose 54 points over the week.

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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