After a copping battering to finish last week, the ASX is set to rise today, with ASX 200 futures up 0.5% to 7,853 points.
The ASX200 finished 123 points or 1.57% lower last week at 7,773.
It was an interesting week for the local market last week, after striking a fresh record high early in the week, the ASX200 felt the pressure from rising geopolitical tensions and headwinds from Wall Street.
Looking at the sectors, IT fell 4.64%, Real Estate lost 3.91%) and Health Care dropped 2.88%. Conversely, Utilities gained 0.16%, while Energy was up 0.06%.
Novonix (ASX:NVX) was the best-performing stock gaining 17.44%, Platinum Asset Management made 9.26%, Evolution Mining was 8.94% higher, and South32gained 7.33%. On the flipside, Synlait Milk Ltd lost 18.845), Orora Ltd took a 18.75% dive, Block Inc (NYSE:SQ) lost 11.44% and Zip (ASX:ZIP) Ltd dipped 10.07%.
“The local data calendar is light this week, with the market expecting a bounce in home loans on Monday (+2.2% exp from -4.6% prior) and a bounce in consumer confidence after the minutes from the RBA’s March Board meeting showed that the RBA did not consider raising rates for the first time in nearly two years,” IG Markets analyst Tony Sycamore wrote.
US movements
Looking at the US markets, Sycamore wrote, “US stock markets rebounded on Friday, supported by Megatech, despite a firmer-than-expected jobs report that sent yields to their highest closing level this year. For the week, the Dow Jones shed 903 points (-2.27%), the S&P500 lost -0.95% and the Nasdaq lost -0.80%.
“Friday's non-farm payrolls report showed the US economy added 303,000 jobs in March, 100,000 more than the consensus forecast. The unemployment rate ticked lower to 3.8% from 3.9% prior. Providing comfort, average hourly earnings fell to 4.1% YoY, the lowest level since the pandemic, along with Fed chair Powell’s comments at the March 20 FOMC presser that a strong labour market won’t warrant a delay to rate cuts.
“This week's data-laden calendar includes CPI, PPI and retail sales reports for March along with the release of the FOMC meeting minutes. Fed Members Bowman, Goolsbee, Williams, Collins, Bostic, and Daly are scheduled to give speeches.
Finally, the Q1 2024 earnings season kicks off with reports scheduled from JP Morgan, Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), Citigroup, State Street (NYSE:STT), and Blackrock (NYSE:BLK).”
Europe, currencies and commodities
(source Commsec)
European sharemarkets closed lower on Friday.
Benchmark indexes across all major European economies, such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain fell over 1% each.
At a sectoral level, retail and utilities stocks lost about 2% each, while household goods shed 1.7%.
- The continent-wide FTSEurofirst 300 index slid 0.8%. For the week, the index dropped 1.2%, its worst weekly drop since mid-January.
- In London, the UK FTSE 100 index also shed 0.8%, logging a weekly decline of 0.5%.
Currencies
Were weaker against the US dollar in European and US trade.
- The Euro fell from US$1.0846 to US$1.0790 and was near US$1.0835 at the US close.
- The Aussie dollar dipped from US65.90 cents to US65.49 cents and was near US65.80 cents at the US close.
- The Japanese yen eased from 151.09 yen per US dollar to JPY151.74 and was near JPY151.60 at the US close.
Commodities
Global oil prices rose more than US$1 a barrel during trade on Friday as markets watched for signs of any direct conflict between Israel and Iran that could further tighten supplies.
- The Brent crude price rose by US52 cents or 0.6% to US$91.17 a barrel.
- The US Nymex crude price lifted US32 cents or 0.4% to US$86.91 a barrel.
- Both crude oil benchmarks notched gains of more than 4% for the week.
- Base metal prices were mixed on Friday.
- Copper futures dipped 0.2% from 14-month highs after the US dollar strengthened. But aluminium futures gained 0.4%.
For the week, copper jumped 5.9% with aluminium up 4.9%.
- The gold futures price rose by US$36.90 or 1.6% to US$2,345.40 an ounce on Friday, as US interest rate cut bets, speculative buying and central bank purchases kept bullion's record rally active despite strong US job growth in March.
- Spot gold was trading near US$2,329 an ounce at the US close after hitting a record high of $2,330.06 earlier in the session.
- Bullion rose 4.8% over the week, logging a third straight gain.
- Iron ore futures added US8 cents or 0.1% to US$99.97 a tonne on Friday. Chinese markets were closed for a public holiday.
- Iron ore tumbled 8.7% over the week, hitting 10-month lows, on increasing shipments from top exporter Australia and faltering steel demand in China.
On the small cap front
The S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries (XSO) dropped 0.95% on Friday and was down 0.29% for the week to 3,069.90.
It has been a reasonable start on the news front and you can read about the following and more throughout the day.