MAp Group

The Australian stocks market delivered a strong opening on Friday after Wall Street and European markets rallied overnight. The US shares were boosted by the encouraging corporate results and a better-than-expected report on existing home sales.

The Australian market opened slightly higher on Tuesday. Wall Street posted modest gains overnight as investors focused on the company earnings reports and shrugged off the weak housing data.

Australian shares extended losses by 0.5 per cent in early trade on Friday, ignoring Wall Street's small gain overnight. Asian stock markets opened mixed today as investors are cautious with concerns about Greece's shaky finances. The Australian dollar opened slightly lower against the US dollar this morning, but hit a new high against the euro overnight. On the economic front today, Australian Bureau of Statistics releases international trade price indices for March.

Wall Street declined overnight on a weak housing report, despite some strong earnings results. The Commerce Department said that construction starts on privately owned homes rose 0.5 per cent to 590,000, lower than expectations.

US stocks climbed to a 2009 new high on Thursday, as the oil prices surge buoyed energy companies. New York crude oil futures rose more than 3 per cent to a one-year high of US$77.58 a barrel after the government said US gasoline reserves fell sharply last week. The financial and IT stocks retreated over mixed economic data and corporate outlook.

Wall Street closed lower overnight after American consumer confidence reading in September dropped unexpectedly. The weakness in US technology stocks, which had been a leader for much of Wall Street's six-month rally, yesterday led a fall in the market. The Conference Board's consumer confidence index dipped in September to 53.1 from 54.5 in August as people worries about job market.

Wall Street Friday climbed to a fresh 2009 high as analysts boosted their growth outlook for the US. The market was inspired after Barclay's Capital raised its forecast for the nation's GDP growth in first three months of next year to five per cent from three per cent. For the week, Dow index posted a gain of 215 points.

Overnight Wall Street posed a solid gain as an upbeat sentiment that the worst is over increased investors' appetite for riskier assets. The shares were lifted by a round of buying in financial shares and a jump in US industrial production data.

Wall Street closed modestly higher on Tuesday after positive US economic data. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke also said the "recession is very likely over at this point". US retail sales were surprisingly strong in August largely due to government's "cash for clunkers" program, but analysts warned that it may not represent a sustainable recovery in consumer spending.

Wall Street was higher on Friday as a government report showed that the pace of job losses slowed in August. But the US stocks were still in negative territory for the week with the worst performance since early July.