Market wrap: US stocks gave back all of Friday's gains overnight after the big banks announced they would sell shares to repay government loans. The major indexes fell 0.5% (Nasdaq) - 2.2% (S&P 500).
The falls were led by banks (-7%) and REITs (-4.5%). Oil and gas miners also fell, despite a late rally in crude lifting the price back to within a few cents of Friday's close at $58.16.
Copper led a retreat in base metals on concerns over flagging Chinese demand, although most metals remain close to recent highs. A 45% jump last week lifted Shanghai copper stocks to their highest level since the end of March. Gold was recently less than 0.5% weaker at $912.60.
Our market pre-empted some of the US retreat yesterday but futures traders reckon there is plenty more to come this morning. The SPI fell 61 points to 3870. Despite weakness in commodities, that looks slightly overdone to me after yesterday's 15-point fall. We may see a reverse of yesterday's open, with a weak start to the session, followed by a recovery. Let's hope so, because that's much easier to trade.
