Bonds/Interest Rates

Strength on European markets belied an ever weakening euro while Wall Street struggled to justify further gains before losing its bottle in the last hour. Dow down 113. (Locked for subscribers until 10:00 AEST)

A snapshot of economist responses to today’s Australian labour force data for April.

Wall Street was heartened by economic data and pushed indices back above the collapse level of last week. Dow up 148.

A snapshot of economist responses to today’s March Australian housing finance data, where the decline was broadly as expected.

Analysts can’t find much in the budget to impact on markets beyond what we already knew, but they are quick to point out the bullish assumptions contained within.

Wall Street rode an uneasy rollercoaster last night but it was up and only up for gold, to a new record high. Dow down 36.

Wall Street was last man in to the global relief rally on the back of the euro defence package announced after the New York close yesterday. Dow up 404.

After months of destructive dithering, the EU has finally hit the panic button and pledged hundreds of billions of euros in aid for the eurozone while the ECB has yet again reneged and joined in with bond support.

ANZ reports job ad growth fell 1.2% in April after three strong months but the trend is still healthy.

NAB’s Monthly Business Survey for April showed falls in both business conditions and confidence levels.