ASX to open flat amid rising geopolitical tensions

The Australian share market is set to open flat this morning.

Many of the major global equity markets finished lower or flat overnight, amid rising geopolitical tensions related to the United States – from its airstrike a Syrian airbase last Friday to its decision to send warships near the Korean peninsula as a show of force.

Despite those risks, US equities finished flat as American investors look forward to earnings season this week. Energy shares were the best performers on the back of rising oil prices overnight.

Australian economic news

NAB will release its Business Confidence Survey results for March.

Markets

All the major Wall Street indexes finished flat this morning (with very marginal gains): The Dow Jones closed the trading day at 20,658, the S&P 500 is at 2,357 points, and the NASDAQ closed at 5,881 points.

European markets finished lower overnight: London’s FTSE was flat (or down 0.01%), Paris was down 0.5%, and Frankfurt dropped 0.2%.

Asian markets finished mixed yesterday: the Nikkei added 0.7%, the Hang Seng was flat while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.5%.

Australia’s ASX 200 lifted 50 points (or 0.86%) to close at 5,913 yesterday.

This morning, on the futures market the SPI is flat, or down 2 points.

Company news

Activist US hedge fund, Elliott Management, which claims to own a 4.1% stake in BHP Billiton’s (ASX:BHP) London-listed shares, has called for the mining company to restructure its business. In particular, unifying BHP’s dual-listed company structure into a single Australian entity, and demerging its petroleum arm into a separate entity on the New York stock exchange. However, BHP has rejected this plan, saying that the costs outweigh the benefits. Yesterday, BHP shares closed 4.64% higher at $25.73.

Ex-dividends

Four companies are going ex-dividend today:

- Adairs (ASX:ADH) will pay 3.5 cents, fully franked,
- Over The Wire (ASX:OTW) will pay 0.75 cents, fully franked,
- Traditional Therapy (ASX:TTC) will pay 1.7 cents, unfranked, and
- Watermark Fund (ASX:WMK) will pay 3 cents, fully franked.

Currencies

At 7.35am, the Australian Dollar was weaker, buying $US75.03 cents, 60.44 Pence Sterling, 83.18 Yen and 70.81 Euro cents.

Commodities

Gold has dropped $0.90 to $US1,256 an ounce.
Silver is down 21 cents at $17.94 an ounce.
Oil is up $0.91 to $US53.15 a barrel.