Valgard Investments

US Markets closed flat on Thursday as employment data on new jobless claims came in at 14mth highs, giving the markets mixed signals about the job sector.

The ASX 200 closed slightly higher yesterday as consumer confidence data reported by Westpac saw its highest rise in 6 years.

Alibaba the massive Chinese Ecommerce company started by Jack Ma reported is yearly earnings yesterday and showed significant gains over last year and good growth in its new sectors.

The major indexes in the US saw their second day of losses as weaker than expected jobs data saw traders continue their sell off.

Disappointing data on US GDP growth was released yesterday seeing the slowest growth in nearly 2 years.

The ASX 200 has opened higher today in early trading. Up just under 0.5% the benchmark index is positive ahead of the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases its International Trade Price Index data for Q1.