The impact from the stellar results from Apple and Facebook didn’t last long – a day at most – on Wall Street with a sell-off on Friday led by the tech-heavy stocks in the Nasdaq and other markets leading the way down.

This week sees a big test of the Australian market’s current bout of confidence on multiple fronts in what will be the first full week of trading in three weeks.

Despite the rising tensions in Ukraine and talk of a tougher approach from Russia to gas sales, New York oil futures closed lower on Friday night for the worst week in a month.

Now here’s a story you probably won’t read amid all the talk of slowing China and another fall in world iron ore prices – global crude steel production in March jumped to a new all time monthly high of more than 140 million tonnes, up on both March 2013 and February this year.

Shares in Apple and Facebook jumped in after hours trading this morning after the two tech giants reported better than expected quarterly reports.

Just as the chances of an interest rate rise here have receded, New Zealand got its second rate rise in just over a month this morning when the country’s central bank lifted its key rate to 3.0%.

The local sharemarket rose to a new six year high, money market interest rates fell, as did the Aussie dollar, which dropped under 93 USc.

As most of Australia basks in mild autumnal weather at the moment, the weather bureau has stiffened its warning of the chances of a major dry period (an El Nino event) occurring later this year.

The plan by Japanese Prime Minister Abe to boost his country’s economy and end deflation is looking increasingly shaky in the wake of another huge annual trade deficit.

Our market is looking for another solid start to trading after its post Easter jump yesterday.

Last week’s rebound on Wall Street saw the recent bearishness in Nasdaq stocks, especially biotechs replaced by a renewed bullishness – but for how long?

A very short week in Australia – just three trading days for markets and business and one that will be easily dominated by the release of the March quarter consumer price index tomorrow.

BHP Billiton (BHP) and Rio Tinto (RIO) were upbeat about the prospects for their copper businesses this week – forecasting rising production over the rest of 2014 and into 2015.

More good news for our iron ore exporters.

The Aussie dollar jumped after China GDP figures for the March quarter came in slightly ahead of expectations around lunchtime yesterday.

A year ago yesterday, gold prices fell 9.3% in their worst ever one day fall.

The Reserve Bank has bewailed the impact of the stubbornly high Australian dollar on economic growth, which is helping make the transition from the mining investment boom much harder than it should be.

Was Monday’s fall one we didn’t have to have?

The big test this week of the bearishness or otherwise among investors about China’s economy will come with the release of the March quarter GDP data, plus figures on industrial production, investment and retail sales.

Believe it or not, the Australian stockmarket outperformed most of the world’s major exchanges in last week’s slide, bar the Chinese market.

The coming holiday-shortened week will be dominated by China’s March quarter growth (see separate story), US first quarter earnings, the Reserve Bank minutes in Australia, the start of two weeks of almost continual holidays and the stockmarket sell off (see separate report).

Never mind the small, but significant point that the March jobs data from the ABS yesterday, and the surprise fall in unemployment contained in it, send conflicting stories about the health of the labour market and the wider economy.

Don’t focus on the weak 6.6% year on year fall in Chinese exports in March to $US170.11 billion.

Nasdaq’s blues have returned, dragging down the US market for a third day in a week.

The sell off on Wall Street isn’t resulting from investors deserting equities – it’s more a switching as investors move out of companies with stretched valuations (in the eyes of those investors) into more mainstream companies such as utilities, retailers, other consumer stables and even some financials.