Good morning traders, welcome to the last week before winter rolls in. Thanks @ttward, @Ravgnome & the aftermarket loungers. An abbreviated week over in the US & UK, but I’m sure the rest of us can manage a day without them. It may be too much to hope we won’t still get a tweet or two to send markets scrambling though.

ASX Market Report

The benchmark ASX 200 rolled over a little on Friday, closing at 6456 points down 35.8 points or 0.55%. But it was still an otherwise strong week, putting on 90.7 points or 1.42% in the aftermath of the unexpected victory for Scott Morrison and the Liberal-National coalition in the Australian federal elections. The Australian markets managed to outperform all of the major Equity markets through May largely through that surprise election result as well as talk of a rate cut in the near future. Most markets around the world have had a rather torrid May ,and the Aussie markets one of the very few to be in positive territory for the month.

The majority of sectors on the ASX were down for Friday, with none of those that closed in the green posting notable gains. Consumer Discretionary stocks were up 0.17% and best in class to end the week, helped higher by Aristocrat Leisure (ALL) on the back of Thursdays announcements of profit rising 15%, and subsequent broker price target upgrades.

The weakest on the index were again the Lithium producers after showing some promise earlier in the week, Galaxy Resources (GXY) was down 11c or 6.55% and Pilbara Minerals (PLS) down 4.5c or 5.66% taking the bottom 2 positions. Orecobe (ORE) also struggled, closing at $3.35, down 14c or 4.01%.

The largest gainer on the index was Ansell (ANN) after they had a price target upgraded by analysts at Credit Suisse.

The Energy sector as a whole was significantly down following concerns over the trade war and the drop in Oil prices, shedding 3.07%. Woodside Petroleum (WPL) was down $1.39 or 3.49% to $35.70, Worley Parsons (WOR) fell3.21% or 44c, Santos (STO) was down 23c or 3.19% to $6.98, and Oil Search (OSH) fell 21c or 2.77%.

Consumer staples also had a torrid end to the week dropping a shade over 2%, with Woolworths (WOW) falling 91c or 2.71% to $32.70

Following a fall in the tech heavy Nasdaq on Thursday, the IT sector in oz was down 1.74%. Market darlings Afterpay (APT) ended the week poorly, and well as rivals Zip Co (Z1P). Altium (ALU) was also down, closing $1.30 or 4.21% lower, as well as Wisetech Global which fell 67c or 2.88% and Technology One (TNE) which dipped 19c or 2.58%.

The Financials were softer as a whole, but the big four were mixed. ANZ the only one making a move of note, dropping 10c or 0.36% to $27.84, the rest were otherwise flat.

Healthscope (HSC) had their last day of trading on the ASX after the Federal Court gave final approval to Brookfield Asset Management's $4.4 billion takeover. They will be replaced in the index by Cooper Energy (COE) on Monday.

As mentioned earlier, the UK and US markets will be closed for the Spring Bank Holiday and Memorial day respectively today, so the potential for a more quiet day of action on the back of a fairly stable Friday lead in.

The Aussie Dollar was buying 0.6926 USD, 0.5448 GBP, 0.6178 EUR, 75.71 JPY and 1.057 NZD.

Global Markets Report

Markets in the United States recovered slightly on Friday following Donald Trump saying complaints again Huawei might be resolved within the framework of a trade deal between China and the US. Although if the market reaction is anything to go buy, there are still a lot the need more convincing about the likelihood of any of this playing out.

MSCI’s gauge of stock performance across 47 countries gained 0.39%, while the European STOXX 600 index closed up 0.56%.

In the United States, the Dow was up 95.33 points or 0.37% to 25,585.69, the S&P 500 rebounded 3.8 points or 0.14% to 2826.1 after a 34 points or 1.19% fall the previous day, and the Nasdaq bounced 8.73 points or 0.11% to 7637 after dropping 122.56 or 1.58% the previous day.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.69%, The S&P 500 fell 1.17%, and the Nasdaq had a rough time of it following the Huawei saga escalating, down 2.29%

Theresa outlined her intentions to step down as the Prime Minister of the UK in what was much expected on Friday. Britain's own version of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, is the most high profile candidate so far to be linked with the position. The FTSE 100 was up 46.69 points or 0.65% and the British Pound rose 0.43% against the US Dollar.

The US dollar index fell 0.25% amidst concerns the trade war may further hurt the US economy.

West Texas Crude recovered $1.09 to close up 1.88% after Thursday sharp drop, and down 5.99% for the week.

The price of gold was relatively stable through the week, last trading at 1,285 up 0.59% for the week.

Economic Data May27-31

(Via Commsec)

5 Things to Watch

(Via Reuters, click here for the full article)

1/THE MONTH OF MAY

Theresa May stepped into 10 Downing Street in July 2016 with the express aim of taking Britain out of the European Union. She will depart as prime minister this summer having failed in that ambition. No one can say she didn’t try — after three attempts to get her EU withdrawal bill through parliament, she finally had to admit it was dead in the water.

Graphic on Brexit and sterling: tmsnrt.rs/2WW8QBb

2/GAME OF PHONES

The Sino-U.S. trade war has morphed from a tariff spat into a battle over who controls global tech. Washington has banned U.S. firms from doing business with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. Essentially that cripples the company’s ability to make new chips for its future smartphones.

3/EM TANTRUM WITHOUT THE TAPER?

Markets have a funny way of repeating themselves and exactly six years on from the ‘taper tantrum’, when investors freaked at the sudden realization the U.S. Fed wanted to end money printing, some are wondering whether something similar is brewing again. A conviction the U.S.-China trade war will force the Fed to cut interest rates have pushed benchmark government bond yields that drive global borrowing costs to the lowest in years. But just like in 2013, the Fed is flagging something different.

4/MODI-NOMICS TO THE TEST

After a stunning win in the world’s biggest election, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins to put together a new cabinet and a 100-day action plan. Focus is on who becomes finance minister — Arun Jaitley, a key troubleshooter for years — is said to be out of the race due to ill-health.

5/ON THE ROAD AGAIN

The U.S. summer vacation season begins, unofficially, with the Memorial Day weekend, and travel volumes across the United States should be the second-highest on record this year, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). Despite high fuel prices, nearly 43 million Americans will be traveling over the long weekend, and 37.6 million will be driving, making this holiday travel season the busiest since 2005, the AAA predicts.

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Hope you all have a fine start to the week and trade well, just a quiet thanks to all the contributors to the thread big and small. I know not everyone gets the plaudits they deserve for their contributions, but I just wanted to start of the week on a positive note and thank those that give their time to help out others here. Whether that’s alerting people to trading opportunities through stock scans, manually reading announcements, stocks you are tracking that are interesting, posting charts for others; whether you are giving a contrarian option, helping to educate people in the AM lounge through knowledge and experience, or just giving us a laugh on what can be a bit of a lonely pursuit. Whatever it is you do, cheers to all of you, you are all what make this thread what it is. And hi to the many many lurkers that just do the reading.

That’s enough of me ramblin, we all make some great calls and.. some not so great ones, in the end, it doesn't hurt to be humble about it all as we know the next day the market can take as much as it gives, we’ve all experienced both.