Market Update – 29th October 2018 – U.S & European Equities Finish The Week Lower, AUD Held Up By Iron Ore Prices

U.S Advance GDP numbers came in at 3.5% on Friday night, which was above forecasts of 3.3%; but despite the beat and the revision higher of the previous quarters reading to 4.2% U.S equities were still unable to post gains. In fact U.S equities fell by as much 2% led again by the tech heavy NASDAQ (which had a horrid 5 days, down 4.2% for the week). The poor showing in U.S equities on Friday night was reflected in Europe where equities fell by around 1%.

The all important Aussie Dollar managed to buck the losses thanks to robust iron ore & commodities prices and finished higher vs. the Greenback, Pound and Euro. There is a fair bit of green on my IG Markets screen this morning with futures markets suggesting Aussie, Chinese and Japanese equities will open higher when trade commences, while U.S stocks are suggesting small gains. I tipped a quiet week last week but was terribly wrong, so I won’t try to make a prediction on how this week will go other than to say the Aussie dollar does appear resilient around the 0.7000 market.

Home sales data is out this morning and all I can say is expect more bad news here as has become the case recently. The housing market has done a full 180 degree turn from all out optimism to all out pessimism and this looks likely to continue for some time given tightening of credit, less foreign investment and rising interest rates.

AUD EXCHANGE RATES:

AUD/USD – 0.7063

AUD/GBP – 0.5496

AUD/EUR – 0.6190

AUD/NZD – 1.0836

AUD/JPY – 79.100

USD/BTC – $6,371

OTHER MARKETS: 

All Ords (XAO) – 5,759

Gold – A$1,742/oz

Silver –  A$20.73/oz

WTI – US$67.62/barrel

DATA RELEASES TODAY:

AUD – HIA New Home Sales