Thanks afternoon crew. That's it for another week. Thanks for your company. Have a great weekend, all.
End-of-day wrap:
The share market erased most of last week's rally with a fourth straight loss at the end of a week dominated by doubts about the outlook for the Chinese economy and US rates.
The ASX 200 fell 14 points or 0.2% this session to extend its loss for the week to 122 points or almost 1.7%.
The materials sector was the biggest drain on the index after soft Chinese trade data yesterday fuelled selling in iron ore and industrial metals. Ore futures gave up another 2.3% in China this afternoon. The sector shed 1% today with Fortescue Metals and Rio Tinto both losing more than 1.7%.
US futures were positive at the Australian close following a mixed finish on Thursday for the major indices. Overnight, Apple's heavy weighting in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq pulled both benchmarks lower, while leaving the Dow with a slender gain of 0.17%.
At the Australian close, futures for all three indices were higher by 0.14 - 0.22%.
Right, time to shut down your trading platforms and head for the lounge. I'm going to get self-indulgent for a moment. This week's Lounge Special is my favourite beer from a local brewer - Mountain Culture based in Katoomba. Hill People is a big, juicy New England IPA bursting with flavour. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, I could drink about a million and a half of these. At 6.5% abv, it never turns out well when I try.
