The Australian share market is poised to open higher this morning, following a positive leads from US markets, after President Donald Trump's speech.
In his first speech, as the 45th US President he said, US borders needed to be protected from the ravages of other countries, to protect US companies and jobs. Via the White House’s website, he also vowed to boost economic growth to 4%.
Prior to the speech, the three major indices were trading over half a per cent higher. The Dow Jones gained 111 points at one stage - which broke the index’s 5 day losing streak. While the S&P 500 rallied ahead with telecommunications and materials leading the advancers.
Economic news due out this week: Today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) releases its figures on Lending Finance for November. In October new loans were down 5.8% over the year, to $68.68 billion.
On Wednesday: The ABS will also drop its figures for the Consumer Price Index, for the December quarter. Economists are predicting a rise of 0.7 per cent to 1.6 per cent.
And on Friday: the ABS will release more data. This time, the Producer Price Index for the December quarter, and the import prices or Import Price Index for the same period.
Markets:Wall Street closed higher on Friday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5 per cent to close at 19,827, the S&P 500 added 0.3 per cent to close at 2,271 and the NASDAQ rose 0.3 per cent to close at 5,555.
European markets mixed: London’s FTSE was down 0.1 per cent, Paris gained 0.2 per cent and Frankfurt rose 0.3 per cent.
Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei added 0.3 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.7 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite climbed 0.7 per cent.
And back home, the Australian share market closed lower on Friday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 37 points down, to finish at 5,565, losing 66 points over the week.
On the futures market the SPI is up 27 points.
Company News: Blue Sky Alternative Investments Limited (ASX: BLA) has secured a institutional investment mandate with superannuation consulting company, LGIAsuper. The asset manager says, the mandate will be used across its real assets strategies, which include Australian water entitlements, agribusiness and agricultural infrastructure. Blue Sky also secured a mandate with large a Australian institutional investor, who they did not name. Shares in Blue Sky were up 1.74% on Friday to $7.00.
Ex-dividends:Mirrabooka Investments Limited
(ASX:MIR) is going ex-dividend today. It’s paying 3.5 cents fully franked.
Currencies:The Australian Dollar at 7:00AM was buying $US75.64 cents, 61.14 Pence Sterling, 86.44 Yen and 70.65 Euro cents.
Commodities:Gold has gained $6.30 to $US1,210 an ounce for the February contract on Comex.
Silver has climbed 11 cents an ounce to $US17.11.
Oil has gained $US1.12 to $US53.24 a barrel for March light crude.
