Abbott vs. Turnbull… Trump vs. Obama… Impact on markets?

Good Morning,

A bit of “friendly fire” this morning, with Abbott and Turnbull exchanging some words…

Will there be an early election?

Just recently, Donald Trump, the leader in the Republican camp, faced a “barrage” of criticism on his approach of building a wall between the US and Mexico and his stance on race, religion and human rights…

So what impact will Trump have on markets?

We don’t think a positive one, as a number of countries close to the US, will simply “cut-ties” with the world’s largest economy…. It will just be a matter of time…

We are watching closely on developments…

US stocks “fluctuated” last night and closed fairly flat (Dow Jones +13 points).

It appears that the “wild swings” and volatility has for now, subsided, and this is driving commodities higher….

This is good news, as we really didn’t want to see the Dow Jones + 400 and down 380 points the following night…

Markets have calmed after a volatile first six weeks of 2016, which saw U.S. equities post the worst opening period on record.

While policy easing by the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan and a forecast for a shallower trajectory of U.S. interest rate increases helped settle price swings, investor confidence remains fragile.

Last night, we saw US Existing Home Sales come in slightly lower than expected and as you can see from the chart below, we would need to see a large jump…

The US fed will be watching these figures closely..

In Oz, markets started off well but selling in the banks and profit taking in the resource sector, dragged our markets lower.

Today, we should get a slight “boost” from a pickup in Crude, however, expect a fairly “flat” day ahead, as we head into Easter….

The SPI is up 2 points this morning

Niv

Niv Dagan is an Executive Director of Melbourne based boutique funds management and corporate advisory firm, Peak Asset Management (www.peakassetmanagement.com.au). He is also a regular financial commentator on Sky Business.