Market wrap: A late slide on Wall Street points to a flat start for Australian shares this morning.
Futures traders expect our market to open 2 points lower after a choppy session in the U.S. turned modestly negative in the last half-hour of trade. The March SPI futures contract closed at 4699.
U.S. indexes see-sawed in and out of positive territory as investors weighed analyst upgrades and healthy earnings results against lingering concerns about European debt. The Dow closed 19 points or 0.18% lower, the S&P 500 lost 0.1% and the Nasdaq 0.08%.
Financial stocks accounted for much of the strength in the market after supportive comments about long-term low interest rates from San Francisco Federal Reserve President Janet Yellen. In a speech quoted on MarketWatch, Ms Yellen said, "This is not the time to be removing monetary stimulus... The economy still needs the support of extraordinarily low rates."
The S&P Bank Index rallied 2.2% against the general market trend. However, resource sectors were mostly lower as traders pared bets after recent strong gains in commodity prices. An index of gold/silver miners slipped 1.4%, oilers were off 1% and natural gas companies 1.6%.
Crude oil futures recovered the $80 a barrel mark for the first time in a month. Crude futures were recently trading at $80.05, up 0.3% for the session, and facing technical resistance after climbing $10 in two weeks.
Gold failed to hold Friday's gains. The spot price was recently at $1,113 an ounce, down $4.10 from Friday's New York close.
China's muted return from lunar new year holidays crimped demand for industrial metals. The key Chinese stock index closed 0.5% lower yesterday and metals prices in Shanghai failed to match recent gains on the London Metal Exchange.
"Shanghai didn't seem to fully catch up with what it missed," RBS metals analyst Stephen Briggs told Reuters. "But it is only the first day."
In London, copper dipped 1.6%, lead 1.9%, nickel 1.6% and zinc 3% but aluminium rose 0.5% and tin 0.7%
European markets broke their five-day winning run. Britain's FTSE fell 0.11%, Germany's DAX 0.59% and France's CAC 0.34%.
TRADING THEMES TODAY
SEARCHING FOR DIRECTION: U.S. markets have been treading water for the last two sessions, suggesting uncertainty. The Federal Reserve's move to raise the emergency bank loan rate on Thursday may not have torpedoed the market, but it hasn't lit a fire under it, either. Today probably isn't a day for big bets on our market. Tonight brings the first of this week's key U.S. economic indicators - consumer confidence. In the meantime, it's worth keeping an eye on Shanghai after it fell 0.5% yesterday upon its return from holiday.
ECONOMIC NEWS: Nothing major scheduled locally. Monthly consumer confidence data are the main event in the U.S. tonight. Also scheduled: regional manufacturing and the house price index.
