The Australian share market is set to open flat today, US stocks rose yesterday as fears of an escalating conflict in Syria eased. Meantime. investors looked to earnings announcements with some of the biggest U.S. companies reporting strong quarterly results. Bank of America’s shares rose 0.4 per cent off the back of strong earnings. JB Hunt Transport was another strong performer ,rising more than 6 per cent following solid results. While, Netflix also jumped more than 6 per cent after the company exceeded revenue and subscriber estimates.
On the commodities front – Oil prices slipped on waning investor concern about Syria, and gold edged higher.
Local economic news Today the Reserve Bank releases minutes of its April Board meeting and weekly consumer confidence figures are released.
MarketsWall Street closed higher yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9 per cent to close at 24,573, the S&P 500 gained 0.8 per cent to close at 2,678 and the NASDAQ added 0.7 per cent to close at 7156.
European markets closed lower: London’s FTSE fell 0.9 per cent, Paris lost 0.04 per cent higher and Frankfurt was down 0.4 per cent.
Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei added 0.3 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.6 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite declined 1.5 per cent.
Taking all of this into equation, the ASX futures are pointing to a 3 points gain. Yesterday the Australian share market closed higher with the S&P/ASX 200 Index adding 12 points to close at 5841.
Company newsCrown Resorts has announced the appointment of Guy Jalland as a director after getting the green light from regulators.
Shares in Crown Resorts
(ASX:CWN) (ASX:CWN) closed 0.48% higher to $12.60 yesterday.
Ex dividendsGazal Corporation (ASX: GZL) is paying 8 cents per share fully franked, while Nzme
(ASX:NZM) is paying 5.6 cents unfranked.
Currencies One Australian Dollar at 7:45AM was buying US77.83 cents, 54.30 Pence Sterling, 83.39 Yen and 62.88 Euro cents.
Commodities Iron ore futures are pointing to a 2.3 per cent fall.
Gold has gained $1.00 to $US1348.90 an ounce.
Silver has added $0.01 to $US16.66 an ounce.
Oil has dropped $1.00 to $US66.33 a barrel.
CryptocurrenciesThe three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading mixed: Bitcoin has lost 3.31 per cent to US$8009, Ethereum dropped 3.67 per cent to US$504.66 and Cardano has gained 13.65 per cent to US$0.25.
