ECB’s Draghi in focus today

The economic calendar is relatively light on Friday. The only main event scheduled will be a speech given by Mario Draghi at the European Banking Congress this morning. ECB board members Benoît Cœuré and Peter Praet will also speak.

Looking at how markets performed today: Asian stocks were mixed, capping off an otherwise positive week in which investors have becoming increasingly resolved to the likelihood of a December rate hike from the Federal Reserve.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.6 per cent in morning trade, but on track for a 0.8 per cent gain for the week. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.4 per cent, for a weekly advance of 4.2 per cent — on track for its second-best of 2015.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.2 per cent, while China’s Shanghai Composite was 0.3 per cent higher and the tech-focused Shenzhen Composite was up 0.7 per cent.

In currencies:

The US dollar index, a measure of the buck against key rivals, was up 0.1 per cent on Friday at 99.063, after falling by the most in a month on Thursday. The euro was fetching $1.0722 in Asian trade, falling 0.2 per cent. On Thursday it jumped 0.7 per cent, despite minutes from the European Central Bank on Thursday showing that further policy easing in December was a strong possibility.

Asian currencies were mostly higher on Friday, building on Thursday’s gains. Malaysia’s ringgit was up 0.9 per cent, followed by the New Zealand and Taiwanese dollars, both up 0.5 per cent.

Commodity prices endured a wild week, with copper hitting multi-year lows and iron ore re-approaching the lows in July, which were the cheapest in eight years of records. On Friday, West Texas Intermediate up 0.1 per cent to $40.57 a barrel and Brent crude up 0.3 per cent to $44.32. Gold was 0.2 per cent higher to $1,084.29 an ounce.

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