Nasdaq gains for 7th day: ASX tipped for flat start

Market Reports

by Jessica Amir

The tech heavy Nasdaq has posted a 7-day green light run, with earnings season in the US being under way. The index did only close over 1 point higher though. The Dow and S&P 500 closed in the red. Because of the mixed result our local market is headed for a flat start.

Netflix shares jumped 7 per cent which added to the Nasdaq's gain after Netflix revenue hit $2.79 billion, breaking though the $2.76 billion expected.

The broader S&P 500 closed around the breakeven mark, with health care weighting and utilities leading the advancers. For the Dow, well that closed pretty much flat too, with IBM shares seeing the most losses and Home Depot adding the biggest gain.

On the commodity front, oil prices have lost ground while gold has gained. We will bring all of those figures to light in just a moment.

Local economic news

The Reserve Bank of Australia will release their board minutes from the 4 June meeting. Although interest rates remained on hold last month, analysts are still expected to eye the release closely, in hope of uncovering a change in mood.

And the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will unveil the new vehicle sales for June.

Markets

Wall Street closed mixed on Monday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell slightly by 0.04 per cent to close at 21,630 , the S&P 500 lost 0.01 per cent to close at 2,459 and the NASDAQ gained 0.03 per cent to close at 6,314.

European markets closed mixed: London’s FTSE rose 0.4 per cent, Paris lost 0.1 per cent and Frankfurt fell 0.4 per cent.

Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei was not trading again for a public holiday, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.3 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite fell 1.4 per cent.

And back home, the Australian share market closed in the red on Monday: At the closing bell, The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 10 points lower or 0.2 per cent lower at 5,755.

On the futures market the SPI is 4 points lower.

Company news

Rectifier Technologies (ASX:RFT) is in the final stages of a manufacturing facility renovation in Malaysia. The switch-mode power converter company expects its manufacturing capacity to increase by at least three fold once the expansion is completed and operational by early September 2017. Rectifier Technologies says the new production floor space is more than double its existing production area. Shares in Rectifier Technologies (ASX: RFT) last traded flat at 1.6 cents.

Ex-dividends

Two companies are going ex-dividend today:

8I Holdings (ASX:8IH) is paying 0.25 cents un franked and
Euroz Limited (ASX:EZL) is paying 5.5 cents fully franked.

Currencies

One Australian Dollar at 7:30AM was buying 77.97 US cents, 59.75 Pence Sterling, 87.86 Yen and 67.95 Euro cents.

Commodities

Gold has gained $5.70 to $US1,233 an ounce.
Silver has added 15 cents to $US16.08 an ounce.
And Oil has lost 57 cents to $US46.18 a barrel.


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