The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 3.95% last night, providing positive overseas leads this morning after markets were ravaged this week by Standard & Poor's decision to drop the US sovereign credit rating from AAA to AA+.

Fears that the European sovereign debt crisis will worsen, and even possibly extend to impacts on France's credit rating, have also rocked markets.

London Metal Exchange cash copper closed at $8859.5 a tonne overnight, down 1.7% from last Friday's closing price. This price is also a 9.7% fall from two weeks ago.

LME cash nickel closed at $21,551/t overnight and was down 4% from the closing price last Friday, and has plummeted 13.6% from two weeks ago.

Singapore Tapis crude closed at $114.81 a barrel overnight and has been trading around the $114 level all this week.

Yet last night's price was 9.7% down on the $127.18/bbl close for the first day of August.

Spot gold briefly hit yet another record at above $1800 an ounce on Wednesday and averaged $1793/oz across the day.

Yesterday it averaged $1764.10/oz and was trading around 1758.58/oz this morning.

This morning's price is up 5.7% from last Friday's close and represents an 18% gain from the average price of $1487.78 on July 1.

The Australian dollar has taken a tumble and even slipped below parity with the US dollar this week, but has recovered to trade above $US1.03 this morning.

Despite the volatility, most PNG-exposed stocks listed in Australia have made some overall gains for this week.

Quintessential Resources shares have also improved performance across the week after a flat debut on Wednesday.