Following weak leads from Wall Street, the Australian share market looks set to open in negative territory for the very last trading day of 2015. Overnight, we saw the price of Brent crude slip despite managing to claw back some ground over the past couple of days, with energy stocks leading the losses in the US.
Global markets
Wall Street closed lower yesterday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.7 per cent to close at 17,604, the S&P 500 lost 0.7 per cent to close at 2,063 and the NASDAQ lost 0.8 per cent to close at 5,066.
European markets closed lower: London’s FTSE lost 0.6 per cent, Paris slipped 0.5 per cent and Frankfurt lost 1.1 per cent.
Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei added 0.3 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.5 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 0.3 per cent.
The Australian share market closed higher yesterday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 53 points higher to finish at 5,320. On the futures market the SPI is 14 points lower.
Currencies
The Australian Dollar at 8:20AM was buying $US0.7287, 49.20 Pence Sterling, 87.82 Yen and 66.69 Euro cents.
Company news Hills Limited
(ASX:HIL) and its bankers have amended Hills’ finance facilities reducing the unsecured $110 million facility to a secured $55 million facility and have agreed to work together to refinance its reduced facilities by the end of February. This will allow Hills to keep its funding requirements in line with the size of the business as it grows and save net financing costs. Shares in Hills Limited closed 1.45 per cent lower yesterday at $0.34.
Commodities
Gold has lost $7.30 to $US1,061 an ounce for the February contract on Comex.
Silver has lost $0.07 to $13.86 for March. Copper has gained $0.01 to $2.15 a pound.
Oil has dropped $1.04 to $US36.83 a barrel for January light crude in New York.
