Wall Street gains Friday, commodities fall: Aus shares to slide

Market Reports

by Jessica Amir

The Australian share market looks set to open on a weaker note this morning, despite Wall Street finishing higher on Friday. It comes as commodity prices have come under pressure with the iron ore price futures pointing over 1 per cent lower, while the oil price has lost over 3 per cent suggesting both our iron ore mining companies and energy stocks are in for a fall.

In fact, US crude oil prices posted their worst weekly fall in two years. And as for US stocks on Wall Street, they posted their worst week in two years and on Friday the indices saw another wild ride with the

Taking all of this into equation, the ASX futures are pointing to a 28 point fall.

On Friday the Australian share market closed lower with the S&P/ASX 200 Index closing 53 points lower at 5,838.

US economic news

Wholesale inventories have been revised higher in December and more than expected. It comes as the Commerce Department reported US wholesale inventories rose 0.4 per cent in Dec, up from the initial figure of 0.2 per cent. It also follows November’s revised lift of 0.6 per cent.

And it’s important to note that wholesale inventories are put into the calculation of gross domestic product, inventories excluding auto stocks, which was growth of 0.2 per cent.

Local economic news due out this week

Today, debit and credit card lending data is due out today. On Tuesday, NAB’s business survey for December and lending finance for December from the ABS. On the Same day we can also expect a speech from the RBA Assistant Governor. Mid-week Wednesday, consumer confidence data for February and on Thursday the unemployment and employment data for January.

Markets

Wall Street closed higher: The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.4 per cent to close at 24,191, the S&P 500 added 1.5 per cent to close at 2,320 and the NASDAQ gained 1.4 per cent to close at 6,874.

European markets closed lower: London’s FTSE lost 1.1 per cent, Paris lost 1.4 per cent and Frankfurt fell 1.3 per cent.

Asian markets closed lower: Tokyo’s Nikkei shed 2.3 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 3.1 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite fell 4.1 per cent.

Company news

GetSwift (ASX:GSW) advised that it made a breach and is working with CBA (ASX:CBA) to resolve the issue and concerns raised. It comes as the software as a service business appointed PwC to review its compliance and disclosure obligations. And as such the company says the CBA did not give permission to GetSwift to release a statement to the market about it wining an exclusive contract with the big four bank on the 18 December 2017. CBA only approved the initial announcement, which dated back 4 April 2017. GetSwift (ASX:GSW) last traded on 19 January 2018 at $2.92.

Japanese company Mitsui and Co, has written to AWE (ASX:AWE) shareholders, offering to buy their shares for $0.95 each. It comes as the AWE’s approved the takeover. AWE Shares closed 0.5 higher on Friday at $0.97.

Reporting season

Five companies are reporting their results today, Ansell (ASX:ANN), Aurizon Holdings (ASX:AZJ) Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (ASX:BEN), Amcor (ASX:AMC) and JB Hi-Fi (ASX:JBH).

Ex-dividends

Two companies are going ex-dividend today, BKI Investment (ASX:BKI) is paying 3.63 cents fully franked and Oceania Healthcare (ASX:OCA) is paying 1.64 cents un franked.

Currencies

One Australian Dollar at 7:45am was buying 78.11 US cents, 56.58 Pence Sterling, 85.04 Yen and 63.79 Euro cents.

Commodities 

Gold has lost $3.30 to $US1,316 an ounce. 
Silver has lost $0.20 to $US16.14 an ounce. 
Oil has lost $1.95 to $US58.99 a barrel. 

Cryptocurrencies

The three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading mixed: Bitcoin has fallen 0.9 per cent to $8,333, Ripple has gained about 0.9 per cent to $1.03 and Ethereum has dropped about 0.6 per cent to $835. 


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