Market Update

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets rose over the last week as ongoing signs of economic recovery and stimulus measures helped offset concerns about a "second wave" of coronavirus cases. US shares gained 1.9%, Eurozone shares rose 3.1%, Japanese shares rose 0.8% and Chinese shares rose 2.4%. Australian shares also gained 1.6% helped by the positive global lead with strong gains in IT, energy, telco and consumer discretionary stocks. The rally came after a 6% [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets fell sharply over the last week on concerns about a second wave of cases in many US states and the pace of economic recovery after cautious Fed comments. This came after a huge rally since the March lows - with US shares rising 44% and Australian shares rising 35% - left shares overbought and due for a pause or pullback. Reflecting the weak global lead Australian shares fell sharply [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets continued to power up over the last week as developed countries saw further reopening along with more green shoots of recovery and some countries unveiled more stimulus measures, all of which swamped concerns about protests in the US and ongoing tensions between the US and China. Reflecting the strong global lead, the Australian share market rose to its highest level since early March with very strong gains in banks, [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets continued to rally strongly over the past week as economic reopening in developed countries and stimulus measures continued but worries about an escalation in US/China tensions saw gains reduced late in the week. Despite taking a bit of a hit on Friday from worries about US/China tensions, the Australian share market made it to a new recovery high with particularly strong gains in banks, property, telco, energy and consumer [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Major global share markets, with the exception of Chinese shares, rose solidly over the last week on optimism regarding the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus, reopening from lockdowns, dovish comments from US Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Powell and moves towards a common bond in the eurozone, despite escalating US/China tensions seeing some of the gains reversed. For the week, US shares rose 3.2% reaching a new recovery high, eurozone [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Global share markets pulled back over the last week on worries about "second waves", the economic outlook and tensions with China. Australian shares were hit too with concerns about trade tensions with China and worries about the banks but good gains in materials, telcos and health shares saw the market down only slightly over the week. Bond yields fell slightly as did copper prices, but the oil price rose for [...]

Tuesday night would have been Budget night and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg would have been announcing a budget surplus. But, COVID intervened. There was no budget announcement, and any surpluses have now gone - sacrificed to support Australian households, businesses and jobs. This year, the Treasurers customary budget speech was replaced with a statement to Parliament on the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis in which he reiterated that the “best way to pay back debt is through productivity enhancing reforms [...]

This week the Australian market started well, lost ground in the wake of downbeat job figures (Thursday) only to rally late and finish square at close of trading today. It had the potential to be much worse considering figures released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed unemployment jumped from 5.2 per cent to 6.2 per cent in April - the highest since September 2015 - with total employment collapsing by almost 600,000 for the worst monthly decline [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets mostly rose solidly over the last week as progress continued in reopening economies supporting perceptions that economic activity may have passed the worst. Eurozone shares were the exception though and fell as they played catchup to falls in US shares a week ago. Australian shares rose strongly helped by the positive US lead and the Government's move to reopen the economy which saw all sectors gain but with very [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week While shares rose strongly early in the past week, they then fell sharply on the back of bad economic data, profit warnings, increased tensions between the US and China and profit taking after a very strong gain in April. US shares fell 0.2% for the week due to a 2.8% decline on Friday. Eurozone shares were closed Friday so still managed a 4.2% gain for the week. Japanese shares rose 1.9% [...]