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Outlook: Aus shares set to open higher February 01, 2016 08:30 AM

A shock move from the Bank of Japan to adopt a negative interest rate policy sent US stocks well over 2 per cent higher on Friday with upbeat earnings reports and positive economic data adding to the buoyant mood.

That positivity should feed through to the Australian sharemarket today with local stocks also expecting to open higher.

Wall St has still had a shocking month however ending January around 6 per cent lower with the NASDAQ recording even bigger falls.

US economic news

Weak GDP data increased expectations the Fed will go slow on future interest rate hikes. The advance read of fourth quarter GDP came in at 0.7 per cent annual growth, well below the third quarter read of 2 per cent.
And the Chicago Performance of Manufacturing Index jumped to 55.6 in January, well above the 42.9 read in December.

Markets

Wall Street closed higher ahead of the weekend:
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.5 per cent to close at 16,466,
the S&P 500 added 2.5 per cent to close at 1,940
and the NASDAQ advanced 2.4 per cent to close at 4,614.

European markets also closed higher:
London’s FTSE added 2.6 per cent,
Paris rose 2.2 per cent
and Frankfurt gained 1.6 per cent.

Asian markets closed stronger:
Tokyo’s Nikkei added 2.8 per cent,
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 2.5 per cent,
and China’s Shanghai Composite added 3.1 per cent.

The Australian share market closed higher on Friday:
The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 29 points up to finish at 5,006 to be 90 points higher on the week.

On the futures market the SPI is pointing 37 points higher.

Currencies

The Australian Dollar at 7:15AM was buying 70.88 US cents,

Economic news

Due out today from AIG is January PMI. RP Data Core Logic releases their Home Value Index for January and the TD Securities Melbourne Institute inflation gauge for January is also due.