The Australian share market is expected to open higher, following a positive finish on Wall Street and in Europe overnight, plus contract prices for oil, silver and copper ended firmer.
US stocks rallied after China rejected a report that it was reviewing its European bond holdings due to the region's debt crisis.
The focus then shifted to more positive US economic news. The government revised is reading on first-quarter GDP to an annual growth rate of 3%, that’s below its initial estimate of 3.2%. The rate showed that consumer spending has doubled since the final quarter of last year.
And the Labor Department said first time jobless claims fell last week to 460,000 compared to 474,000 the week before. Economists were actually expecting claims to fall even lower.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 285 points to 10,259. The S&P500 Index rose 35 points to 1,103 and the NASDAQ advanced 82 points at 2,278.
European stocks finished stronger. London’s FTSE rose 157 points, Paris gained 117 and Frankfurt is up 179 points.
To our region, and Asian markets were higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 235 points, Tokyo’s Nikkei rose 117 and China’s Shanghai Composite added 30.
The Australian share market closed stronger yesterday with the rally on regional markets among the factors that helped to boost the market. The S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 72 points to 4,379 and on the futures market the SPI200 is up 65 points. Turning to currencies and the Aussie Dollar at 8:10AM was buying 85.05 US cents, 58.4 Pence Sterling, 77.4 Yen and 68.86 Euro cents.
In local economic news: The Melbourne Institute releases its bulletin of economic trends.
To company news around this morning: Shares in Coca-Cola Amatil (ASX:CCL) closed slightly lower yesterday, down 0.09% to $10.72. The company’s newly appointed chief of alcoholic beverages, John Murphy, has ruled out any bid for Foster's $9.7 billion demerged beer division, saying the soft-drink maker would rather expand its own growing portfolio of premium beer brands. Coca-Cola Amatil and its partner, SABMiller, had been considered lead candidates to pitch for Foster's beer division. But Mr Murphy who worked at Foster’s for nearly three decades, has dismissed the prospect of that happening. Instead he’s told BusinessDay that he intends to use his recent management experience at Visy to make packaging a key driver of innovation and differentiation in the beer market. Coca-Cola Amatil recorded a net profit of $449 million in 2009.
Shares in National Australia Bank (ASX:NAB) closed 2.11% higher to $24.15 yesterday. National Australia Bank is expected to make cuts and changes to senior executive positions as it undertakes a restructure in a bid to secure a bigger share of mortgages and deposits. According to the Herald Sun newspaper, the head of NAB's retail business Warren Shaw will leave his role, while head of partnerships Matt Lawler looks to have been left without a role after his position was abolished. The Herald also reports that bank's head of personal banking Lisa Gray said the shakeup will include the formation of a new small business unit, to be headed by senior executive Glenn King. The changes are tipped to take effect early next week. In the year to September 30 2009, National Australia Bank recorded just over a $2.5 billion net profit.
There are no ex-dividends going today, but there are on Monday and they include, Eldorado, Ruralco Holdings, TFS Corporation and Technology One.
To commodities, and the price of gold fell $1.50 to US$1,211.90 an ounce for the June contract on Comex. Silver is up 16 cents at US$18.46 and copper added 8 cents to US$3.15.
And the price of oil rallied for a second day in a row, it’s up $3.04 to US$74.55 a barrel for July light crude in New York.
