The market is up 64. Our 200 Futures were up 19 this morning. The Dow Jones finished up 121 on Friday to make a new all time high of 15354.

The Dow was up 124 at best on the back of better-than-expected economic data and on further talks that the Federal Reserve may soon start winding back quantitative easing measures.

US consumer sentiment was up from 76.4 to a six-year high of 83.7 in May, beating the forecast of 78.0.

The US leading index was up 0.6% in April to near five-year highs, beating the forecast of +0.2%. San Francisco Fed President John Williams (also a non voter) about the Fed possibly tapering its asset purchases (QE) soon.  The 10-year bond yield is creeping its way back to 2.0% closing the week at 1.949%.

Spain announced its first monthly surplus in over 40 years although it’s not really that great because it came on the back of a large drop in imports, though with higher auto sales for the first time in 18 months. European markets up — UK FTSE up 0.53%, Germany up 0.34%, France up 0.56%, Spain up 0.47%, Italy up 0.35%.

Metals mixed — copper up 0.33%, nickel down 0.51%, zinc up 0.46%, aluminium down 0.29%. Spot iron ore was down $1.90 to $123.10. Over the week iron ore was down $6.50.

  • CBA Business Sales Indicator — Spending rose 0.5% in April. The prospects for Australian businesses are looking better with spending across the economy rising for the eighth consecutive month. Spending was up 4.9% in April compared to a year earlier.
  • Leighton Holdings (AGM) — Has retained earnings guidance at today’s AGM. LEI is up 4.55% to 1883c.
  • Singtel’s Optus (SGT) — Has unveiled plans to roll out Australia’s first multi-band 4G network. The initiative will improve coverage, speed and enhance the strength and consistency of its 3G network. SGT is up 0.76% to 330.5c.
  • NEXTDC (NXT) — Has announced the achievement of ISO9001:2008 quality management system certification. The certification recognizes that NEXTDC operates a quality management system that  complies with the requirements of ISO9001:2008 for the design, development and provision of secured data centre infrastructure and associated services. The certification applies for the Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra data centers. NXT is applying for Sydney and Perth data centres on its commencement of operations. NXT is up 4.67% in early trade. NXT is up 4.67% to 224c.
  • A media report says the Aussie dollar is “overdue for a correction” and will settle around US90c this year as the US economy continues to recover and the US dollar climbs higher. Its fall is also put down to the deterioration in Australia’s economic position. The Aussie dollar is down more than 8% this year to US97.3c. The consensus forecast is that the dollar is 10%-15% overvalued. Its average over the last decade was US86c