Wall Street higher: Aus market rally to continue

Following positive leads from US markets, the Australian share market looks set to open higher.

The S&P 500 gained for third consecutive day and the Dow climbed to its highest level in almost a month on the back of strong tech, financial and telco stocks.

Boeing, 3M, and Apple were among the top performers.

On the commodities front, oil has gained 0.6 per cent and gold has jumped almost 5 per cent. A rise in the price of iron ore and copper will help miners.

Taking all of this into consideration, the ASX futures are pointing to a 29 point gain. Yesterday the Australian share market closed higher with the S&P/ASX 200 closing 42 points higher to 6042.

The Markets

To the figures from around the globe: Wall Street closed up yesterday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.6 per cent to close at 25, 709, the S&P 500 added 1.2 per cent to close at 2780 and the NASDAQ gained 1.2 per cent to close at 7421.

European markets closed up: London’s FTSE gained 0.6 per cent, Paris rose 0.05 per cent and Frankfurt gained 0.4 per cent.

Asian markets closed higher: Tokyo’s Nikkei added 1.2 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.7 per cent , and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 1.2 per cent.

Company News

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA:ASX) is to dispute new claims by corporate regulator ASIC that it tried to affect the Bank Bill Swap Rate on six occasions in 2012 – that’s up from three occasions mentioned in its initial statement last month.  The Australian Securities and Investments Commission filed a statement of claim to the federal court. The first round of royal commission hearings will start next month and will include the big four banks as it examines industry conduct. Shares in CBA closed1.5 per cent higher at $76.60.

Reporting season

We can watch out for Caltex (ASX:CTX), Costa Group Holdings (CGC:ASX), PMP (PMP:ASX), Iluka Resources (ILU:ASX) and Southern Cross Electrical Engineering (SXE:ASX) which are all set to report financial results today.

Currencies

One Australian Dollar is buying $US78.54cents, 56.25 Pence Sterling, 83.99Yen and 63.78 Euro cents.

Commodities

Gold has gained $4.70 to $1335 an ounce.
Silver has gained $0.12 to $US16.66 an ounce.
Oil has gained $0.46 to $US64.01 a barrel.

Cryptocurrencies
The three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading mixed: Bitcoin has gained 8 per cent to US$10 425, Tether has fallen about 0.3 per cent to US$0.99. Ethereum gained about 3.5 per cent to US$873.

Dividends