The Aussie market will start this week hesitantly today despite Wall Street’s solid session on Friday adding to what was a good day globally.
The overnight share price index trading was up 6 points – indicating a slow start on the ASX this morning, despite Friday’s record close here where a 0.5% gain saw the index add 1.6% in the first week in June after the 1.9% rise in the final week of May.
Before Wall Street’s close in the green global markets had rallied and closed near all-time highs.
Oil, copper, gold and iron ore rose as US bond yields sagged and the dollar fell in the wake of America’s May jobs data which while strong, were not as robust as expected.
While that eased investor worries that the Federal Reserve would soon rein in monetary stimulus, the worrywarts and fretters in markets focused on the May Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) data due next Thursday which are expected to again be well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Economists expect CPI to be up 4.7% year over year, after April’s 4.2% pace. Core inflation is expected to be up 0.4% for the month and 3.4% year over year. The Fed’s target is 2% (but that is being ignored for the time being).
That will get the fretters chattering again but as usual what happened in the US Treasuries market gave the real story.The key 10 year bond yield dropped to 1.5585% from 1.627% on Thursday. That’s the lowest since May 6, the day before the weak April jobs data was released.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.39% after hitting a record high this week and rising 0.8% by Friday.
On Wall Street, Microsoft lifted the S&P 500, followed by Apple, as the index gained 37.04 points, or 0.88%, to 4,229.89, marking an overall near-record jump of more than 12% this year.
Shares of Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet’s and Tesla also rose.
Reuters pointed out that these big technology firms account for more than 5% of the MSCI’s all-country index’s weight and are back driving gains.
The Dow rose 179.35 points, or 0.52% on Friday, to 34,756.39 while the Nasdaq added 199.98 points, or 1.47%, to 13,814.49.
The S&P 500 added 0.6% over the week, closing up at 4,229, just 9 points from its all-time high. The Dow rose 0.7% to 34,756, and the Nasdaq gained 0.5% to 13,814.
The ASX was bolstered Friday by the big banks, CSL, Telstra, and Woolworths and the ASX 200 closed at a new record high 7,295.4 on Friday. The market briefly touched 7300 for the first time in history in Friday’s session.
The Commonwealth Bank added nearly 2% in value last week as it ended sessions at new highs. Friday was no different with the bank’s share price closing at $102.54, a new high after touching an intraday day high of $102.64.
The Aussie dollar rose back over 77 US cents after Thursday’s dip under that level and finished at 77.43 US cents. That was a gain of 1% on the day and 0.4% for the week.
