What you need2know

SPI futures down 56 pts or 1.1% to 4867 on Saturday morning

AUD at 70.62 US cents, 82.85 Japanese yen, 63.52 Euro cents and 48.89 British pence

On Wall St, S&P 500 -1.9%, Dow -1.3%, Nasdaq -3.3%

In New York, Atlassian -15.9%

In Europe, Stoxx 50 -0.9%, FTSE -0.9%, CAC -0.7%, DAX -1.1%

In London, BHP -0.5, Rio -2.2%

Spot gold +1.5% to $US1173.40 on Friday in New York

Brent crude -0.9% to $US34.15 at 5pm Friday in New York

US oil -2.3% to $US31.00

Iron ore at $US45.73, highest since November 18

Chinese markets closed this week for Lunar New York, Spring Festival

What's on today

ANZ job ads. Japan current account, Japan wages, German industrial output. US labour market conditions. Credit Suisse Financial Services Forum in Miami. Earnings: Ansell, JB Hi-Fi, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, 21st Century Fox Inc, Hasbro Inc, Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc, Plains All-American Pipeline LP.

Stocks in focus

Technology stocks were hammered on Wall Street on Friday

Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the US currency against 10 global peers, rose 0.6 per cent, paring its slid this week to 1.9 per cent. Against the euro, the greenback weakened to $US1.1162, its steepest weekly slide since March. The dollar was at 116.95 yen, down 3.5 per cent since January 29.

Traders have been pulling away from a strong-dollar trade that's been a winner as the Fed prepared and then started to raise interest rates at a time when peers including the BOJ and European Central Bank were expanding stimulus. The tide has turned, with futures showing the odds of a quarter-point rise in the Fed's benchmark target rate by January 2017 at less than 50 per cent, from 93 per cent at the end of 2015.

"The currency markets have recently traded on an extremely dovish Fed in 2016 - our view is that that's probably been overdone," said Chris Molumphy, chief investment officer of Franklin Templeton's fixed income group in San Mateo, California, which manages $US153 billion.

The dollar's recent volatility will put a heightened focus on Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen's testimony to Congress in the week ahead.

Commodities

Rigs targeting oil in the US fell by 31 to 467, Baker Hughes Inc. said on its website Friday. It was the biggest one- week drop for oil rigs in 11 months. Natural gas rigs were trimmed by 17 to 104, bringing the total down by 48 to 571. Explorers and producers in the Eagle Ford of south Texas had the biggest fallback in activity, dropping eight oil rigs and leaving 55 to work there.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange closed down 1.2 per cent at $US4630 a tonne, erasing similar gains in the previous session when prices hit the highest since January 4 at $US4720 a tonne.

LME zinc, the best performer on the exchange so far this year, shed 2.2 per cent to finish at $US1677 a tonne, but still gained over 3 per cent during the week.

United States

The Nasdaq closed at its lowest since October 2014 on Friday, leading a selloff on Wall Street following weak forecasts from technology companies including LinkedIn, which fell 44 per cent. Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and Netflix were caught in the downdraft as was Sydney-based Atlassian.

Stocks like Amazon and Netflix, which both more than doubled in price last year, have been favorites with hedge funds. Friday's action may suggest some hedge funds may be taking a harder look at valuations.

"Tech has got a few shining examples of what happens if you disappoint," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities in New York. "When that happens, that calls into question the valuations of all high-multiple stocks."

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 211.75 points, or 1.29 per cent, to 16,204.83, the S&P 500 lost 35.43 points, or 1.85 per cent, to 1880.02 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 146.42 points, or 3.25 per cent, to 4363.14.

Europe

European shares declined for a fifth day in volatile trading.  The Stoxx 600 slid 0.9 per cent to 325.9 at the close of trading. The measure swung between gains and losses more than 25 times, slipping as much as 1 per cent and rising 0.6 per cent. It posted a 4.8 per cent weekly decline. A gauge tracking equity swings has jumped 36 per cent this year as the Stoxx 600 has lost about 11 per cent.

ArcelorMittal damped an index of commodity producers, falling 5.5 per cent after announcing plans to raise $US3 billion from investors and sell a $US1 billion stake in Spanish auto-parts maker Gestamp.

BNP Paribas helped limit declines on a gauge of lenders, rising 1.5 per cent after saying it would revamp its investment bank.

Volvo gained 1.7 per cent after the second-biggest truckmaker reported fourth-quarter earnings of 5.38 billion kronor, compared with a loss of 1.43 billion kronor a year earlier.

What happened on Friday

With moves of over 2 per cent in either direction mid-week cancelling each other out, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index dropped 0.1 per cent on Friday and 0.6 per cent for the week to 4976.2, while the broader All Ordinaries slipped 0.1 per cent for the day and 0.6 per cent over the five sessions to 5025.6.

Miners were the big winners for the week, with BHP and Rio on Thursday soaring over 8 per cent in their biggest one-day gains since 2009 as iron ore continued to rebound.