Wall Street closed its best week in a month on a slightly sour note, as tech stocks were dragged down again over anxieties about Nvidia and AI investments.
The ASX is priced for a flat opening while the Aussie dollar remains under pressure, sliding again to be worst performing G10 currency this month.
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As mentioned in the earlier post, the AUD/USD is the month's worst-performing G10 currency, off another 0.5% to bring its weekly loss to 1.4% and at 0.6772 its lowest since late January.
NAB's Head of FX Strategy, Ray Attrill described it as a "tumultuous week" for the little Aussie battler, however it has more to do with what's happening on the other side of the Pacific than a flight to safety.
"The year-to-date low, recall, is 0.6663 on 5 Jan," Mr Attrill wrote in a note this morning.
"AUD weakness so far this month is much more of an interest rate story than it is about risk sentiment.
"As well as the collapse in longer duration AU-US spreads, driven more from the US side than Australia, money markets, as well as pricing out almost all of the risk of a December RBA hike (now just 6%), are now more seriously flirting with the possibility of rate cuts next year.
"August 2027 OIS (Overnight Index Swap) pricing, for example, ended Friday at 4.80%, so below the current 4.85% cash rate, down from 4.91% at the end of October."
Wall Street's week of recovery spluttered to a halt on Friday with the key stock indices mostly closing lower, although the Dow did inch ahead.
Despite Friday's retreat, the Nasdaq and S & P 500 both snapped a four-week streak of declines. The S & P 500 gained almost 2.5% over the five sessions.
Eurozone share rose more than 3% over the week, Japan put on 6.5%.
The ASX was a bit muted in comparison, up 0.7%, but it has enjoyed three consecutive weeks of gains.
It looks like being a quiet start to the week, with futures trading pointing to a flat ASX opening.
One of the sharpest movements on Wall Street on Friday was the airline sector — not exactly "adopt brace position", but airline shares dropped in the final minutes of trading after the US Federal Aviation Administration issued a national ground stop of all departing flights.
The NYSE Arca airline index closed down 1.4%.
Nvidia shares also continued to lose altitude, down another 2% on Friday, over uncertainty about leadership at the chipmaker.
It's the sixth consecutive week of losses for the one-time most valuable company on the planet.
CEO Jensen Huang's resignation on Thursday has raised concerns about the durability of the AI trade, given Nvidia's primary role in the industry's boom and its financial ties to a host of companies in the sector, which has been a pillar of the bull market in equities.
"The tech trade, the AI trade, Nvidia is going to go through a period of volatility, and you're going to see the bulls and bears kind of wrestle on where this narrative goes through the rest of the year … there's been a loss of confidence," chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial, Anthony Saglimbene told Reuters.
"The market and investors are trying to navigate what does the AI theme look like when we have the absence of Jensen Huang, who was basically the AI champion and willing to use Nvidia's balance sheet to fund a lot of this AI expansion. That's gone."
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 3.4%, with Advanced Micro Devices dropping 8.8% and Broadcom down 4.8% as the biggest drags on the index.
The S & P 500 technology index shed 1.7% and was the worst performing of the 11 major S & P sectors.
But Microsoft ended 0.2% higher , as it erased earlier declines after a global outage that included its Outlook and Teams products began to ease.
On the economic front, slightly softer-than-expected factory gate inflation (PPI) did little to change the view that the Fed would be raising rates next month.
The 2-year US Treasury yield, the bond yield most sensitive to the Fed's rates decisions, registered its largest jump in more than two years.
That sent the US dollar to a two-month high against its major trading partners.
The Aussie dollar was the biggest casualty, down 0.5% to 67.71 cents, making it the worst performing G10 currency this month — partly due to the fact that it is only G10 country for which markets are pricing a rate cut next year.
The Fed rate hike bet is also driving down gold which fell 4.5% last week, though it did manage a marginal gain on Friday.
Oil had a quiet day by its recent standards , although Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 16% and 13% respectively last week as the focus shifts to a global surplus building up and dwindling US demand.
Good morning and welcome to another day on the ABC markets and finance blog.
Stephen Letts from ABC business team limbering up for a blow-by-blow coverage of the day's events, where every post is hopefully a winner, but none should be construed as financial advice.
Wall Street closed lower on Friday, once again pulled down by the tech sector.
The ASX appears to be lacking direction with futures trading pointing to a flat opening, or a 2 point drop to be more precise.
The Australian dollar is under pressure, falling 0.5% to under 68 US cents on Friday, as US interest rates push higher.
On the data front, it's quiet locally although we'll get insights in the Chinese economy with the big monthly data drop this afternoon, while Japanese GDP will be worth a look as well.
The game's afoot, so let's get blogging.
