Local Markets Commentary

The Australian market commences a new week’s trade on: little change in overnight Friday US equities trade; mostly negative key commodities leads; and increased political and related corporate employee uncertainty.

In overnight Friday commodities trade, US gold futures settled slightly higher. Oil turned lower. Copper swung higher.

The $A was pushed higher towards US75.50c, after falling to US75.20c Friday evening.

Locally today, a weekly house price report is expected from CoreLogic.

Japan is due to report December trade and retail sales figures from 10.50am AEDST. The Bank of Japan also commences a monetary policy meeting, from which outcomes will be announced tomorrow.

China’s markets are closed through Thursday due to the Lunar New Year/Spring Festival holiday season.

Overseas Market Commentary

Choppy trade again featured across most major European and US equities markets overnight Friday, amid mixed data releases and high-profile corporate earnings reports.

Oil turned lower, impacting energy sector trade.

In US data releases, an initial 1.9% December quarter GDP growth estimate contrasted with the September quarter’s 3.5%. Full-year growth came in also at 1.9%, against 2.6% for 2015.

A large rise in soybean exports during the September quarter followed by a drop during the December quarter was cited as mostly producing the difference. Excluding soybean trade, economists estimated GDP growth for each quarter would have come in at 2.7%.

December durable goods orders were reported 0.4% lower, following forecasts for a 2.5% rise. Excluding defence orders, the result would have come in as a 1.7% rise, against a 6.8% ex-defence drop in November.

A final 98.5 January reading for the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index represented a 0.4-point rise on the initial estimate.

Tonight in the US, December pending home sales, personal income and spending and a Texas region manufacturing index are due.

NEC is expected to report earnings, ahead of a swag of major Asia-Pacific stocks this week.

In overnight Friday corporate news, UK supermarket chain Tesco surprised with the proposed £3.7B purchase of food wholesaler Booker.

Chevron suffered due to quarterly revenue missing forecasts, even though sales rose 7.7% to $US31.5B.

Colgate-Palmolive dropped following a 2017 warning, based on forex volatility and market uncertainty.

Post-Thursday US trade, Google parent company Alphabet profits undershot expectations.