Outlook: Aus shares set for another lower opening

Market Reports

by David Chau

The Australian share market looks it will be following a negative lead and open lower this morning.  Last week, there was a surprise post-Brexit bounceback in global shares. However, it seems risk aversion and fears about global growth are now back on investors’ minds.

On Tuesday, oil prices fell by 5 percent, and Wall Street finished lower. Energy was one of the worst performing sectors. The Financial sector also did not perform well, as 4 out of the top 5 decliners were bank stocks, such as JPMorgan.

US economic news

New orders for factory goods fell by 1% in May after two straight months of increases. This was due to weaker demand for transportation and defence capital goods.

Markets

Wall Street closed lower on Tuesday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.6 per cent to close at 17,841, the S&P 500 lost 0.7 per cent to close at 2,089 and the NASDAQ lost 0.8 per cent to close at 4,823.

European markets finished mixed: London’s FTSE was up 0.4 per cent, Paris lost 1.7 per cent and Frankfurt was down 1.8 per cent.

Asian markets closed mixed: The Nikkei lost 0.7 per cent, the Hang Seng lost 1.5 per cent, and the Shanghai Composite was up 0.6 per cent.

The Australian share market closed lower yesterday: The ASX 200 closed 54 points down to finish at 5,228. On the futures market the SPI is down 19 points.

Currencies

The Australian Dollar at 7:30AM was buying $US74.65 cents, 57.37 Pence Sterling (which is a 31-year low), 75.97 Yen and 67.44 Euro cents.

Company news

Bougainville Copper Ltd (ASX:BOC) says the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government has taken up further shares in the company, which were formerly held by Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX:RIO). The PNG government will now have a 36.4% shareholding in Bougainville Copper. Also, Rio Tinto has formally given 6 months notice of its intention to terminate its Management Agreement with Bouganville Copper.

Shares in Bouganville Copper closed steady at 25.5 cents.

Appen Limited (ASX:APX) has renewed its contracts with Microsoft across multiple projects, including its Bing search engine division. Appen says these new contracts support its results for 2016 and will contribute to sales in the following year.

Shares in Appen closed 0.73 per cent down yesterday at $2.71.

Ex-dividends

Abacus Property Group will pay a dividend of 8.5 cents.
Unity Pacific Group will pay a dividend of 80 cents.

Both of these dividends are unfranked.

Commodities

Gold has risen $19,70 to $US1,359 an ounce for the August contract on Comex.
Silver has gained $0.32 to $19.91 for September.
Copper is down 3 cents at $2.18 a pound for September.
Oil is down $2.39 to $46.60 USD per barrel for August light crude in New York. 

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