On Wall Street overnight, the Dow fell over 80 points, then gained it back to close at a record, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed flat. It comes as investors digested news that US President Donald Trump picked Jerome Powell to replace the Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen when her term ends in February.
Our the SPI futures is suggesting we should erase yesterday losses and still keep our sights on the 6,000 mark.
Also overnight, the UK central bank, the Bank of England raised interest rates for the first time in over a decade, signalling gradual rises over time, which was welcome news for its stock market, with the FTSE rising almost 1 per cent.
On the commodities front, oil is continuing to trade up around one-year-highs and the iron ore price is also continuing to bode well, which will extend the big miners rally that we saw yesterday with Fortescue Metals
(ASX:FMG), Rio
(ASX:RIO) and South32
(ASX:S32) gaining over 3 per cent,.
Local economic newsOur retail spending is expected to be released today from the ABS, showing a rise in September, up from a dip of 0.6 per cent in August, which is welcome news for the retailers like JB Hi Fi
(ASX:JBH) and Myer Holdings
(ASX:MYR).
MarketsWall Street closed mixed yesterday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.4 per cent to close at 23,516, the S&P 500 added 0.02 per cent to close at 2,580 and the NASDAQ lost 0.02 per cent to close at 6,715.
European markets closed mixed: London’s FTSE rose 0.9 per cent, Paris lost 0.1 per cent and Frankfurt fell 0.2 per cent.
Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei added 0.5 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.3 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite fell 0.4 per cent.
And back home, the Australian share market closed lower yesterday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 6 points down to finish at 5,932.
On the futures market the SPI is 22 points up.
Company newsAustralia’s leading grower, packer and marketer of fresh fruit and vegetables, Costa Group
(ASX:CGC) is set to increase its stake in its African Blue JV, in Morocco to 90 per cent. The extra 37 per cent holding in the blueberry company will cost the firm $68 million plus transaction costs and be funded through cash flow and existing debt. CostaGroup can also buy an extra 4 per cent over the next 3 years. The JV supplies customers counter seasonal blueberries using Costa genetics and expertise. It has 5 farms over 250 hectares of plantings,and will have another 60 hectares this financial year. Shares in Costa Group
(ASX:CGC) closed 1.9 per cent higher yesterday at $6.35.
And Seven West Media
(ASX:SWM) appointed two new non-executive and independent directors, Teresa Dyson and Michael Ziegelaar. Teresa is a corporate lawyer and a director of Energy Queensland, Energy Super and Gold Cost Hospital just to name a few, while Michael has acted for the Federal Government on the privatisations of Medibank Private and Telstra, and for a wide range of corporates. Also yesterday Seven West Media announced it will make $25 million of annualised headcount reductions starting this financial year. Shares in Seven West Media
(ASX:SWM) closed lower yesterday at $0.61.
Ex-dividendsBPS Technology
(ASX:BPS) is paying 2.25 cents fully franked.
CurrenciesOne Australian Dollar at 7:45AM was buying 77.17 cents, 59.09 Pence Sterling, 88.04 Yen and 66.20 Euro cents.
CommoditiesGold has lost $0.70 to $US1,277 an ounce.
Silver has lost $0.05 to $US17.13 an ounce.
Oil has gained $0.46 to $US54.76 a barrel.
