Following negative leads, the Australian share market looks set to open lower. U.S. stocks took a sharp down turn on Friday following hawkish comments from Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren on the prospects of a rate hike this month. Markets jittered on Friday, with stocks selling off across the board and all major indexes ended in the red at the close of trade.
US economic news
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau on Saturday showed wholesale inventories for July failed to make any significant gains on June’s data, coming in steady at $591.3 billion.
Markets
Wall Street closed lower on Friday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.1 per cent to close at 18,085, the S&P 500 lost 2.5 per cent to close at 2,128 and the NASDAQ lost 2.5 per cent to close at 5,126.
European markets closed lower: London’s FTSE dropped 1.2 per cent, Paris fell 1.1 per cent and Frankfurt lost almost 1 per cent.
Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei was steady, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.8 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite fell 0.6 per cent.
The Australian share market closed lower on Friday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 47 points down to finish at 5339. It was down 34 points down on the week. On the futures market the SPI is 79 points down.
Currencies
The Australian Dollar at 7:20AM was buying $US75.46 cents, 56.87 Pence Sterling, 77.42 Yen and 67.14 Euro cents.
Company news
A-Cap Resources Limited
(ASX:ACB) has announced it has been granted a mining licence for a Uranium project in Botswana. A-Cap intends to now progress to the next stage of project optimization works and a pre-feasibility study. The company has indicated it plans on raising capital for development of the mine via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in early 2018.
Shares in A-Cap Resources Limited closed 46.34 per cent up on Friday at $0.06.
Mineral Resources Limited
(ASX:MIN) has announced all conditions have now been met for the purchase of the Wodgina mine assets from Global Advanced Metals. Mineral Resources will acquire mining tenements and infrastructure assets related to the Wodgina site and took operational control as of Friday the 9th of September.
Shares in Mineral Resources Limited closed 1.53 per cent up on Friday at $11.25.
Ex-dividends
A number of companies are trading ex-dividend today including Auswide, CIMIC and Qube Holdings which will pay 2.8 cents fully franked.
Commodities
Gold has dropped $9.80 to $US1,332 an ounce for the December contract on Comex.
Silver has lost $0.55 to $19.13 for December.
Copper has fallen $0.01 to $2.09 a pound for December.
Oil has lost $1.91 to $US45.71 a barrel for October light crude in New York.
