The Australian share market is poised for a steady open with the ASX futures not showing much life, after Wall Street was closed for Memorial Day on Monday. In the UK, the London market was also closed for a bank holiday.
Meantime, Iron Ore is trading lower, so too is Aluminum, while the majority of commodities are trading higher.
Local economic news Building approvals for April (which are a leading indicator of the housing market) are due out today from the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS). In March, dwelling approvals fell by 13.4 per cent. It was the biggest decline in almost 1.5 years. CommSec says the data should rebound, but investors shouldn’t read too much into the reading of dwelling approvals, as the data tends to be volatile on a monthly basis. In trend terms, building approvals actually rose for the first time in 10 months.
MarketsTo the figures Wall Street was of course closed for Memorial Day on Monday. However on Friday, the Dow Jones closed pretty much flat, falling 0.01 per cent, while the S&P 500 also closed pretty much at break even, rising just 0.75 points. The Nasdaq also followed the flat line trend, rising 0.08 per cent.
European markets closed mixed: London was closed so no fresh figures for the FTSE, Paris lost 0.1 per cent and Frankfurt rose 0.2 per cent.
Asian markets also closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei fell 0.02 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.2 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite was closed.
And back home, the Australian share market closed lower on Monday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 45 points down or by 0.8 per cent to finish at 5,707. On the futures market the SPI is down 4 points.
Company newsCTI Logistics Limited
(ASX:CLX) has completed a $2.4 million capital raising by issuing 3.2 million fully paid ordinary shares. The Western Australian transport and logistics business issued the shares to institutional investors, at a price of 75 cents per share, with Forager Funds Management purchasing about 2.19 million shares [2,185,968]. CTI Logistics says it will use the funds to take advantage of expansion and growth opportunities. Shares in CTI Logistics Limited
(ASX:CLX) closed 2.67% higher yesterday to 77 cents.
E
x-dividendsTwo companies are going ex-dividend today Aristocrat Leisure
(ASX:ALL) is paying 14 cents 25% franked and
Aurora Dividend Income
(ASX:AOD) is paying 0.34 cents unfranked.
Currencies The Australian Dollar at 7:45AM was buying 74.39 US cents, 57.96 Pence Sterling, 82.78 Yen and 66.69 Euro cents.
Commodities Gold has fallen $US1.50 to $US1,270 an ounce.
Silver has gained 8 cents to $US17.40 an ounce.
And Oil has increased 19 cents to $US49.99 a barrel.
