Australian market to start year with negative Wall St lead
The Australian share market will start 2015 with a negative lead from US stocks on New Year's Eve.
The benchmark S&P 500 index fell 1 per cent in New York on December 31, finishing the year at 2,059, although that is more than 12 per cent higher than it was at the beginning of 2014.
The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average also fell solidly, dipping 160 points further away from the 18,000 points-plus records it had set earlier in December - it ended 2014 at 17,823.
Australian futures have not traded since Wednesday, when they were just 1 point higher at 5,383 for the March contract.
The benchmark ASX 200 index will start the new year at 5,411, just 1.1 per cent up on where it started 2014, while the broader All Ordinaries had an even smaller annual gain of 0.4 per cent to end 2014 at 5,388.
Both indices fell very slightly on a shortened New Year's Eve trading day where the volume of shares changing hands was low.
The Australian dollar has remained relatively steady over the holiday period at 81.7 US cents.
Over the year, the local currency has performed relatively poorly, falling strongly against the greenback and somewhat down against the British pound and New Zealand dollar, but up a bit against the currencies of the struggling Japanese and eurozone economies.
