Good morning and welcome to Friday, July 21, and the ABC's business and markets blog.

Let's start overseas where it was a mixed affair in the US overnight.

The Dow remains in the midst of its best winning streak since mid-2017, but the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell thanks to the combination of economic data and company earnings season.

First up, the US labour market has continued to show its strength (much like ours here) with weekly jobless data showing the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly falling by 9,000 — putting it in line with the lowest level in two months.

It's the second straight week where the unemployment filings have dropped, and it had a substantial impact on long and short interest rates, sending them higher in the bond markets.

Those moves for interest rates provided some headwind for tech stocks, but after solid gains yesterday thanks to bumper earnings, both Netflix and Tesla stocks suffered a significant decline — down 8% and 9% respectively.

It's not all bad news though — Netflix is still up by 50% and Tesla shares have picked up 140% in year-to-date terms, even with the falls overnight.

And it wouldn't be a tech stock whip-round without mentioning recent market darling Nvidia — its stocks were down 3%, even though Tesla's earning report said it would buy as many chips as Nvidia could produce.

Meanwhile, Blackstone has become the first private equity firm to manage $US1 trillion ($1,475 trillion).

So, what does this all mean for the local market?

ASX futures suggest we're in for a pretty flat start, with investors likely to take some time pouring over yesterday's surprising jobs figures and what might happen with interest rates — although they will be looking ahead to what inflation might do next week.

But we could see some positive impact on the local market thanks to some positive shifts in the Europe, with mining, industrial and bank stocks doing quite well.

Phew! Still with me? It's great to have your company — pour yourself a coffee, settle in, and let's see if today will give us a winning performance like our Tillies last night.

(Football fans, please forgive me for the lack of GIF from last night's win.)