SYDNEY (Thomson Financial) - Australian shares are expected to start the new year in negative territory on Wednesday as investors take their cue from Wall Street, which ended 2007 sharply lower, while falls in gold and oil prices weigh on the resources sector.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 101 points or 0.8 percent to 13,264.82 on Monday amid further bad news about housing and faltering mortgages.
The S&P 500 slipped 10.13 points or 0.7 percent to 1,468.36 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 22.18 points or 0.8 percent to 2,652.28.
'The market will open weaker following the falls in the US and also the reduction in commodity prices,' said CommSec equities analyst Juliana Roadley.
'I think there's also some concern about the closures of some of the oil installations off the North West Shelf of Western Australia just because we've only just hit our first cyclone of the season and we know that last year that did affect our exports, our GDP and our balance of payments,' she said.
'If anything, it might be too much worry too soon because we are at the start of the quarter so they have got a fair bit of time to catch up on those production delays.'
The S&P/ASX 200 March futures contract last traded at 6,348. The Australian market was closed Tuesday for the New Year holiday.
The S&P/ASX 200 wrapped up 2007 in the red after easing 0.1 point to 6,339.8 in very thin trading, while the All Ordinaries ended down 2.7 points at 6,421.0.
In London, the FTSE 100 ended the year down 20.0 points or 0.3 percent at 6,456.9 with year-end window-dressing the only real activity as volumes stayed low.
BHP Billiton lost 53 pence to 1,546 pence and Rio Tinto slipped 53 pence to 5,317 pence after The Sunday Times reported that BHP is considering playing hardball with Rio by submitting an unchanged 150 billion US dollar bid ahead of next month's 'put up or shut up' deadline.
Light, sweet crude oil for February delivery eased 2 US cents to settle at 95.98 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday.
The gold price took its lead from the US dollar, with the most-active February Comex gold price falling 4.70 dollars or 0.6 percent to 838 dollars an ounce as the dollar firmed against most major currencies.
Base metals prices drifted lower in thin trade on the London Metal Exchange after poor US housing data and weakness in equity markets weighed on sentiment.
Zinc was off 4 percent, nickel fell 2.3 percent, lead dropped 1.1 percent while copper eased 0.6 percent.
(1 US dollar = 1.14 Australian dollars)
allison.jackson@thomson.com - bhx/ng COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 101 points or 0.8 percent to 13,264.82 on Monday amid further bad news about housing and faltering mortgages.
The S&P 500 slipped 10.13 points or 0.7 percent to 1,468.36 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 22.18 points or 0.8 percent to 2,652.28.
'The market will open weaker following the falls in the US and also the reduction in commodity prices,' said CommSec equities analyst Juliana Roadley.
'I think there's also some concern about the closures of some of the oil installations off the North West Shelf of Western Australia just because we've only just hit our first cyclone of the season and we know that last year that did affect our exports, our GDP and our balance of payments,' she said.
'If anything, it might be too much worry too soon because we are at the start of the quarter so they have got a fair bit of time to catch up on those production delays.'
The S&P/ASX 200 March futures contract last traded at 6,348. The Australian market was closed Tuesday for the New Year holiday.
The S&P/ASX 200 wrapped up 2007 in the red after easing 0.1 point to 6,339.8 in very thin trading, while the All Ordinaries ended down 2.7 points at 6,421.0.
In London, the FTSE 100 ended the year down 20.0 points or 0.3 percent at 6,456.9 with year-end window-dressing the only real activity as volumes stayed low.
BHP Billiton lost 53 pence to 1,546 pence and Rio Tinto slipped 53 pence to 5,317 pence after The Sunday Times reported that BHP is considering playing hardball with Rio by submitting an unchanged 150 billion US dollar bid ahead of next month's 'put up or shut up' deadline.
Light, sweet crude oil for February delivery eased 2 US cents to settle at 95.98 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday.
The gold price took its lead from the US dollar, with the most-active February Comex gold price falling 4.70 dollars or 0.6 percent to 838 dollars an ounce as the dollar firmed against most major currencies.
Base metals prices drifted lower in thin trade on the London Metal Exchange after poor US housing data and weakness in equity markets weighed on sentiment.
Zinc was off 4 percent, nickel fell 2.3 percent, lead dropped 1.1 percent while copper eased 0.6 percent.
(1 US dollar = 1.14 Australian dollars)
allison.jackson@thomson.com - bhx/ng COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.