Local Markets Commentary

The Australian market opens a new week’s trade on negative international equities and mostly lacklustre commodities leads.

No major domestic economic indicators are scheduled for release, and public holidays will be observed in WA and the ACT.

In overnight Friday commodities trade, oil fell. US gold futures turned a little lower. LME copper settled virtually flat. Iron ore extended recent gains.

The $A slipped further after trading at ~US76.35c Friday evening.

Overseas Market Commentary

Major European and US equities markets turned lower overnight Friday, US indices closing at or near session lows.

Oil prices retreated, damaging energy sector sentiment.

A US preliminary September manufacturing PMI, as estimated by Markit represented a 0.6 pullback to 51.4 against an anticipated 0.1 improvement.

In the euro zone, the initial composite PMI was reported at 52.6, also undershooting forecasts on an unexpected fall for the services sector.

Turkey suffered a sovereign bond ratings downgrade, to sub-investment grade, at the hands of Moody’s.

Tonight in the US, August new home sales and a Texas region manufacturing index are due.

European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi is due to meet with a European Parliament economic and monetary affairs committee.

Overnight Friday, Goldman Sachs and Morgan falls were attributed to US Federal Reserve proposals for limits on physical commodities trading, in particular in the energy sector.

Reports varied concerning Apple’s interest in a holding in McLaren’s technology division.

Facebook suffered, on claims the company had mistakenly inflated the amount of time it claimed users spent watching advertising clips.

Yahoo fell also after revealing a 2014 cyber attack had compromised information held on 500M users.

Twitter confirmed it was talking with potential buyers. Google and Salesforce were rumoured to be two of the interested parties.