Local Markets Commentary

The Australian market commences Friday trade on lacklustre international equities and negative key commodities leads.

In overnight commodities trade, gold continued lower. Oil slid further. Copper and iron ore continued to fall.

The $A effectively marked time after dropping below US75.05c yesterday evening.

Locally today, expect some reaction to the March quarter S&P/ASX indices rebalance, published pre-trade.

A February housing finance report is also due today from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Overseas Market Commentary

Major European and US equities markets chopped and swung amid Federal Reserve speculation, forecast and policy updates from the European Central Bank, and continued falls for key commodity prices.

The European Central Bank (ECB) lifted its 2017 euro zone CPI forecast 0.4% to 1.7% and GDP growth 0.1% to 1.8%.

Notably president Mario Draghi said the bank viewed the need to introduce additional, or extend existing, support as less likely, and that a previous sense of urgency had evaporated.

Rates and bond purchase plans were left unchanged, with the €20B cut to monthly bond purchases set to go ahead in April, but remaining under review, should another change be deemed prudent.

US weekly new unemployment claims rose by 20,000 and the four-week average by 2250.

A February job cuts report reported 19% fewer planned layoffs than in January and 40% fewer than a year ago.

February import and export prices were reported 0.2% and 0.3% higher respectively, import prices up 4.6% year-on-year.

Tonight in the US, the February employment report is due, ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting.

In overnight corporate news, AIG’s CEO resigned.

Netherlands-headquartered Akzo Nobel revealed it had knocked back a $US22.1B offer from US company PPG Industries, and was instead considering selling a specialty chemicals business.

Royal Dutch Shell said it expected $US7.25B from the sale of oil sands assets in Canada to Canadian Natural.