Best World, Noble, oil & gas stocks in play as STI rises for 4th week

THE week began on a firm note as markets around this region took their lead from Wall Street, where "bad news is good news" was very much in prominence after stocks rallied following the release of a shockingly weak May jobs report.

In the federal funds futures market, the implied probability of an interest rate hike at next week's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting plunged from 30 per cent a fortnight ago to just 2 per cent on Monday; on Friday, this fell to zero.

In spite of this, and even with the implied probability of a July rate hike dropping from 50 per cent a few weeks ago to only 18 per cent now, stocks came under pressure in the latter half of the week. This was popularly known as "profit taking"; our preference is that once the short-covering was completed, it was time to resume sh…