The Australian stock market is off for a soft start because mixed signals from offshore trading will put pressure in the overall performance.

Analysts are, however, optimistic that resource stocks gold, oil, and copper, would give a strong performance albeit the bearish confidence in the equity and capital markets.

Last week, Australian stocks ended last week weakly with the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index had settled down lower by 66.7 points, or 1.49 percent, at 4,413 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index was 64.7 points lower, by 1.44 percent, at 4,439.4.

The stock and capital markets will likely gauge the commitments to the G-20 summit and the GDP targets set by the Australian parliament, an economist from the Macquarie Bank noted in a report.

Oil, gold prices promising

Oil and gold prices hold a lot of promise as the futures market cite concerns on world supply as deliveries maybe impaired by the rough weather in the Caribbean Sea.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for August delivery, surged to $US78.86 a barrel, a gain of $US2.35 from Thursday's close.

In London, Brent North Sea crude for August delivery gained $US1.65 to settle at $US78.12 a barrel.

JPMorgan Chase analysts noted that if the low-pressure system developed into a tropical cyclone, it would likely disrupt operations to contain and clean up the BP spill, and might reduce production.
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GDP targets lowered

On Friday, the Commerce Department revised lower its estimate of first-quarter growth in gross domestic product, a broad measure of the country's economic growth, to 2.7 percent.

This third and final estimate was the second downward revision of the Australian GDP for the January-March period, which had been initially calculated at 3.2 percent before an adjustment to 3.0 percent in May.

Markets overseas

Stock markets overseas fell on Friday, as the US government also revised down first quarter US growth estimates.

This was after world leaders present at the Group of 20 developed and developing countries gathering in Toronto, where differences in US and European economic strategies were threatening to emerge, the United States again issued a downward correction to its growth figures.

The news dampened sentiment in Europe, where investors and analysts were awaiting the outcome of the G20 meeting this weekend.