Markets: Mad Week Gone, This Week?

For the first time in a fortnight, investors will start the trading week without the threat of a major market slump.

That's an almost hard to believe scenario after last week's manic trading plunges and surges.

Wall Street actually ended one of its most volatile weeks ever on a restrained note: the Dow was up 126 points on the day.

Normally that would be considered a strong result for a day and a very positive end for a week.

In the wake of the four days of wild swings, it was far more preferable than the almost panic like trading seen between Monday and Thursday.

To recap:
Monday saw the Dow plunge 635 points, only to turnaround and jump 420 points on Tuesday. Wednesday saw the index shed 520 points, but that was followed by by a 420-point jump on Thursday.

Friday's 1.1% rise in the Dow was sedate in comparison and came despite weak consumer confidence figures, offset by reasonable retail sales data.

Other indexes had a similar experience. The S&P 500 settled 6 points, or half a per cent lower at 1,179 on Friday and the Nasdaq composite nudged up 15 points, or 0.6%, to 2,508.

After all that action, the Dow lost 1.5% over the week, which wasn't bad compared with the 7% loss at one stage earlier in the week

The S&P 500 lost 1.7% and the Nasdaq shed just on 1% after facing bigger losses on Wednesday.

It was probably more investor exhaustion and a desire not to go through the wrenching swings of Monday to Thursday that helped markets settle by Friday.

Solid retail sales data for July helped a little, but that was offset by a 31 year low for the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence survey.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped 3.3% last week, taking the fall in the past three weeks to 12.3% which confirms the region's markets are still in a correction phase.

The Nikkei lost 3.6% for the week, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index ended the week down 4.3%.

In Australia, we are poised for a strong start this morning off a 41 point gain in the share price index futures contract.

The ASX200 index ended up 0.8% cent on Friday, adding 1.6% for the tough week.

That was a stand out performance given the slump Monday and half of Tuesday, and then the big rebound which continued for the rest of the week, despite negative leads from offshore.

The All Ords added 0.8% as well to end at 4237.9.

The dollar rose to $US1.0355 in offshore trade by the close Saturday morning, from $US1.0280 in Australia on Friday.

China's Yuan meanwhile continued its steady climb against the US dollar during the week, the dollar dropping to 6.39 Yuan compared to 6.45 a week earlier.

Despite the solid end to the week, the Australian market is still 16% down from its highs for the year so far in April.

The banks shed gains in late trading in Australian on Friday with the ANZ dropping 0.9%, or 17 cents, to $19.92.

National Australia Bank was off 6 cents at $22.96, Westpac was up 2 cents at $20.47 and the Commonwealth Bank was 2 cents lower at $48.56.

Telstra ended its best week for three weeks after Thursday's surprising upbeat profit statement.

The shares rose more than 2% on Friday to $3.05. That was a 7%-plus gain in two days.

In Europe London's FTSE index added 1.4% for the week, but the other markets tumbled: Paris' CAC 40 lost 2.0% for the week, and Germany's DAX, lost 3.8%.

But European shares cut the week's losses with a 3.6% rise on Friday after some members of the EU banned short selling of financial stocks.

That was after France's credit rating was targeted by market rumours, along with a number of French banks.

Banks across the region ended the week off their lows of mid week, but with still big losses.

For the week, which was marked by heightened volatility, the Stoxx 600 Index fell 0.6%.

It is still down nearly 12% since the highs of February.

The CAC 40 in Paris closed 4% higher to 3,213.88, despite data showing the French economy recorded no growth in the second quarter as consumer spending fell 0.7%.

Germany's, DAX 30 index rose 3.5% to 5,997.74.

London's FTSE 100 index jumped by 3% to 5,320.03.

The early growth data showed the Greek economy shrank 6.9% in the second quarter from the same quarter of 2010.

The non-seasonally-adjusted figure followed an 8.1% annual decline in the first quarter.

At this rate the Greek economy will be a basket case and a problem for the eurozone for years to come.