The Australian sharemarket opened slightly weaker on Monday in the absence of a lead from Wall Street on Friday and despite the best weekly performance by global stocks in two months.
By 10:25 am AEST (12:25 am GMT), the ASX 200 index was down just 0.1% at 8,834.0.
United States markets were closed on Friday for the Independence Day public holiday, but Morgan Stanley Capital International’s broadest index of world shares gained 2% last week as British, German and French indexes rose between 0.4% and 0.8% on Friday.
Also supporting stocks was weaker-than-expected United States employment data, which reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve will leave interest rates unchanged at its next meeting.
But investors remain worried about inflation, according to TD Securities’ head of global economics James Rossiter.
"Our biggest anticipated risk this year, even before the Iran war, was shipping," he was quoted as saying in this Reuters report.
"Ships have been rerouted all over the world because of the Hormuz Strait closure, leading to less shipping capacity globally," he said.
This suggested the price effects of the closure were still working their way through the global economy.
The Australian market had strengthened on Friday with the ASX 200 index leaping 1.4% to 8,844.4 points as nine of the 11 sectors finished higher, helped by gains in health care companies and gold miners.
In fixed interest markets, Australian Government bond yields were down, with two-year rates off by 0.31% to 4.487% and 10-year rates 0.25% weaker at 4.810% at the time of writing.
