No Help From Fading US Economy
So will it be the US economy, or the US financial system that we should be eyeing this week?
So will it be the US economy, or the US financial system that we should be eyeing this week?
The fate of Lehman Bros will drive the market: and then could it be the fate of someone else?
It sounds like more of the same from the past few weeks: sharemarkets rattled, financial stocks rattled and commodities on the slide.
As in the US, the focus in Australia will be partly on interest rates and partly on the health of the markets.
Yesterday the Australian sharemarket closed lower for the third consecutive day on concerns that Wall Street's latest banking woes would hit Australia. The four major banks deducted the most from the index with their major losses of more than 3% following Lehman Brothers' announcement overnight in New York of asset sales.
Yesterday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 fell 91.2 points, or 1.85 per cent, to 4,814.3, while the broader All Ordinaries shed 89.9 points, or 1.81 per cent, to 4,871.5.
The ASX 200 is up 47. That compares to Wall Street being up 164 and the 43 point rise predicted by the SFE Futures this morning – we were up as much as 70 points early on. Bit quiet. Resources up 1.7% - BHP and RIO up about 2.0%. Oz Minerals is up 3.5% after 4-months of heavy losses on the back of falling zinc and copper prices. Financials not finding any solid support – only up 0.3% - as uncertainty spreads through the financial sector from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Lehmans with talk that Merrills (down 16% overnight) may be next. Who knows who's next, the uncertainty is the problem.
There was something very clear and direct in New Zealand yesterday morning with the country's central bank slashing its key interest rate 0.50 to 7.5% and declaring the economy was in recession.