The Australian share market futures are pointing to a rise at the open, so hopefully the local bourse recovers some of yesterday losses after the ASX200 felt its biggest drop in four months.
Wall Street eyed lower ground, with the three major US indices closing in the red, ahead of the UK general election and the former FBI director’s testimony. James Comey is set to make his first public comment, this Thursday, since he was fired by President Trump.
The Dow Jones lost about 45 points, with Boeing adding the most losses. While on the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary led the decliners and the Nasdaq also lost ground.
Gold hit its highest level in seven weeks high, while Oil prices found support, rising 1.7 per cent.
US economic newsUS job openings in April soared to a record high of 6 million positions. According to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics job openings grew 4.5% or by 259,000. So as you can see, there is certainty plenty jobs out there.
Local economic newsThe ABS will release economic growth estimates for the March quarter. CommSec expects the economy may have grown 0.5 per cent in the quarter, to be 1.8 per cent on the year. Australia is of course in the midst of the world’s longest economic expansion in the modern era.
MarketsWall Street closed lower on Tuesday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2 per cent to close at 21,136, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 per cent to close at 2,429 and the NASDAQ declined 0.3 per cent to close at 6,275.
European markets closed lower: London’s FTSE fell 0.01 per cent, Paris lost 0.7 per cent and Frankfurt dipped 1.04 per cent.
Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei slid almost 1 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.5 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 0.3 per cent.
And back home, the Australian share market closed lower on Tuesday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 87 points lower or by 1.5 per cent to finish at 5,667. On the futures market the SPI is 14 points up.
Company newsTassal Group Limited
(ASX:TGR) has responded to Huon Aquaculture's newest proceedings in the Federal court. It comes as the salmon farmer announced it wanted to correct misleading errors in Huon’s release about Tassal. Tassal says it is not in breach of any Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) biomass determination, in Macquarie Harbour and the EPA does have its current production and biomass numbers. While Tassal says it also received approval to trial a waste capture system in the harbor. Shares in Tassal Group Limited
(ASX:TGR) last traded 4.27 per cent lower to $4.26.
To ex-dividendsTwo companies are going ex-dividend today, ALS Limited
(ASX:ALQ) is paying 8 cents 40 per cent franked and James Hardie Industries
(ASX:JHX) is paying 30.15 cents unfranked.
Currencies The Australian Dollar at 7:30AM was buying 75.09 US cents, 58.18 Pence Sterling, 82.14 Yen and 66.59 Euro cents.
Commodities Gold has surged $14 to $US1,297 an ounce.
Silver has gained 12 cents to $US17.70 an ounce.
And Oil has lifted 58 cents to $US47.98 a barrel.
