After a jittery afternoon of trading, major U.S. stock indices fell Wednesday leaving the Australian share market looking set to open lower.
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates, as investors expected, and said it could raise rates at a quicker pace next year.
On the commodities front, oil is up and gold despite being vulnerable to the interest rate hike prospect – has also gained. Four companies go ex-dividend today.
Meanwhile, the Australian dollar has rallied almost one US cent, after the interest rate rise.
US Economic NewsThe Federal Reserve raised rates for the sixth time since the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee began raising rates off near-zero in December 2015.
The FOMC's March meeting was Jay Powell's first as chairman.
Taking all of this into equation, the ASX futures are pointing to a 8 points fall. Yesterday the Australian share market closed higher with the S&P/ASX 200 Index adding 14 points to 5950.
MarketsTo the figures from around the globe: Wall Street closed lower yesterday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2 per cent to close at 24,682, the S&P 500 also lost 0.2 per cent to close at 2,712 and the NASDAQ dropped 0.3 per cent to close at 7,345.
European markets closed mixed: London’s FTSE fell 0.3 per cent, Paris lost 0.2 per cent and Frankfurt added 0.01 per cent.
Asian markets closed lower: Tokyo’s Nikkei was closed, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.4 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite lost 0.3 per cent.
Company News Fintech company Peppermint
(ASX:PIL) has signed a service provider agreement with a mobile financial services app to be known as the peppermint conditional cash transfer management system.
This comes after the company has been looking to expand into the money remittance business for a time.
The new app and web tool will initially be developed to assist the mindandao alliance of self help societies and southern Philippines educational cooperative to manage its funds management
Shares in Peppermint Innovation
(ASX:PIL) closed over 4 per cent lower at 2.2c.
CurrenciesOne Australian Dollar at 8:35AM was buying US77.66 cents, 54.92 Pence Sterling, 82.38 Yen and 62.94 Euro cents.
Commodities Gold has gained $20.40 to $US1338 an ounce.
Silver has added $0.39 to $US16.57 an ounce.
Oil has risen $1.95 to $US65.49 a barrel.
CryptocurrenciesThe three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading mixed: Bitcoin has fallen 0.05 per cent to US$8974, Ethereum gained 0.7 per cent to US$567 and EOS has added almost 12 per cent to US$7.03.
Ex-Dividends
