SYDNEY: The Australian sharemarket has begun the week slightly down as indifferent leads out of Wall Street and slowing Chinese manufacturing activity weighed on the market.
At the 10.15am (AEST) official market open, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 was down 9.2 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 5690, while the broader All Ordinaries index declined 8.1 points, or 0.14 per cent, to 5673.6.
US stocks and commodities finished down on Friday, as oil major Exxon Mobil recorded a 52 per cent drop in second quarter profit while on Saturday China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index slipped to 50.0 in July from 50.2 in June — right at the cutoff point between expansion and contraction.
“It’s unlikely this will be seen as good news,” IG market strategist Evan Lucas said of the China PMI result.
“China will have several hard questions asked of it over the week, feeding into the concern it’s facing a hard landing.”
But Rivkin Securities chief executive Scott Schuberg said that despite US markets slipping on Friday, S&P500 volatility was down and the index actually finished the week 1.16 per cent higher.
Although US earnings “[hadn’t] been that impressive”, the results had also “not been alarming enough to ignite a fresh down trend”, he said.
