Oil plummets overnight: ASX to open lower

The Australian share market is set to open lower this morning, and follow a weak lead from US equities.

Energy stocks were the worst performers on Wall Street, affected by a 5% drop in oil prices overnight. The latest data from the Energy Information Administration showed an unexpected build-up in crude inventories last week – rising 8.2 million barrels, which was far higher than expected.

Furthermore, the Australian Dollar has weakened around 0.77% against the US Dollar following the release of some positive economic data in the United States.

According to ADP’s National Employment Report, private sector employment rose by 298,000 jobs in February. This far exceeds economists’ expectations of a 190,000 new jobs.  This data is promising and strengthens the case for the US Fed raising interest rates next week – with the CME Group's FedWatch tool pricing in a 91% chance of a rate hike.

Markets

Wall Street finished mostly lower this morning: The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.3 per cent to close at 20,856, the S&P 500 fell 0.2 per cent to 2,363 and the NASDAQ gained 0.1 per cent to 5,838.

European markets finished mixed: London’s FTSE lost 0.1 per cent, Paris gained 0.1 per cent and Frankfurt was flat.

Asian markets also closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei fell 0.5 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.4 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite was flat.

The Australian share market finished flat yesterday: the S&P/ASX 200 index fell 2 points to close at 5,760. On the futures market the SPI is 12 points lower.

Company news

ANZ Bank (ASX:ANZ) has partnered with London-based CMC Markets to provide a new share trading solution for its customers under the ANZ Share Investing brand. In a bid to simply its business, ANZ has divested its share trading platform to CMC.  The Bank expects to migrate its customers to the new platform by September 2017. The Bank says, as part of the agreement with CMC, it will continue to manage and provide existing investment lending and cash management solutions. Yesterday, shares in ANZ closed 0.67% higher at $31.60.

Currencies

The Australian Dollar at 8.30am was buying 75.31 US cents, 61.91 Pence Sterling, 86.12 Yen and 71.45 Euro cents.

Commodities

Gold has slipped by $8.20 to $US1,208 an ounce.
Silver has lost 27 cents to $17.27.
Oil has dropped $2.87 cents to $US50.27 a barrel.

Ex-dividends