Following negative leads, the Australian share market looks set to open lower. U.S. crude oil futures dropped 5 percent on Thursday as inventory data released by the Energy Information Administration came in well below figures reported on Wednesday by trade group, the American Petroleum Institute. Investors will now be watching to see if further drops are in store and what effect this will have on market volatility.
US economic news
Stocks of Crude oil in the US have declined by 2.2 million barrels for the week ending 1 July. The ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI index was up 3.6 percentage points for June, coming in at 56.5 percent.
Markets
Wall Street closed flat yesterday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.1 per cent to close at 17,896, the S&P 500 fell 0.1 per cent to close at 2,098 and the NASDAQ rose 0.4 per cent to close at 4,877.
European markets closed up: London’s FTSE gained 1.1 per cent, Paris added 0.8 per cent and Frankfurt lifted 0.5 per cent.
Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei fell 0.7 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.0 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite closed flat.
The Australian share market closed higher yesterday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 30 points up to finish at 5,228. On the futures market the SPI is 21 points down.
Currencies
The Australian Dollar at 7:20AM was buying $US74.79 cents, 57.94 Pence Sterling, 75.36 Yen and 67.60 Euro cents.
Company news
Fantastic Holdings Limited
(ASX:FAN) has clarified its projected FY16 results in relation to the announcement it made on 6 Jul 2016 regarding the closure of its Le Cornu business in South Australia. Excluding both the one off recurring charge and the Le Cornu trading losses, Fantastic expects FY16 EBIT to be 50 percent above FY15 EBIT.
Shares in Fantastic Holdings Limited closed 10.85 per cent up yesterday at $2.35.
Transurban Group
(ASX:TCL) has announced that the Westlink M7 will issue $500 million Australian dollar denominated medium term notes across both 7 and 10 year tenors. Transurban will use the money raised to prepay debt maturing in August 2017 and to finance both the M7 and NorthConnex project.
Shares in Transurban Group closed 0.42 per cent up yesterday at $12.09.
Commodities
Gold has dropped $5.00 to $US1,362 an ounce for the August contract on Comex.
Silver has lost $0.36 to $19.84 for September.
Copper has lost $0.03 to $2.12 a pound for September.
Oil has lost $2.29 to $US45.14 a barrel for August light crude in New York.
