The key Wall Street index, the S&P 500 eked out a marginal rise on Friday, but it was still enough to chalk up another record close.
The 0.01% gain was marginal but still a gain.
The blue-chip Dow picked up 0.5%, but the Nasdaq gave up 0.4% as tech stocks took a bit of a breather from their recent run.
ASX 200 futures closed on Friday up 0.3%.
A gain of about that size could deliver the 32 points needed to eclipse the record close of 9,091 points hit in August.
Friday’s trade rumbled on in the dark about the latest happenings in the labour market, given the Bureau of Labor Statistics, like virtually every US government agency, remained shut down.
Congress is one exception to the shutdown.
It seems the Senate is no closer to solving the budgetary impasse, but elected members continue to get paid handsomely despite orchestrating the closure of everyone else’s jobs.
The only fresh data came from the private sector, where the Institute for Supply Management’s survey showed the services employment index contracted for the fourth consecutive month.
Not compelling evidence, but it leans in favour of more interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
“It certainly feels like momentum is on the side of investors over the last few days,” head of investment strategy at Edward Jones, Mona Mahajan, told Reuters.
Over the week the S&P 500 gained 1.1%.
However, that was outpaced by the Eurozone (+2.7%), China (+2.0%) and Australia (+2.3%).
Oil continued its slide to be down 1% for the session and down 7.4% for the week.
Metals had a better time of it.
Gold (+0.8%) notched its seventh consecutive positive week and will stroll through $US4,000/ounce in the near term if analysts at investment bank HSBC are correct.
Copper hit a 16-month high to have its best week of the year, up 2.2% on Friday to $US10,719/tonne.
Bitcoin also briefly hit a record high above $US125,000, before edging lower.
Bitcoin ($US) (LSEG)