Techs rally on Wall St: ASX to open higher

Market Reports

by Rachael Jones

Australian shares are set to rise today as technology stocks – including Atlassian, rallied on Wall St. Alphabet and Amazon.com rose more than 3 percent yesterday after Netflix kicked off earnings season for megacap technology companies with a 10 per cent gain, extending its 2018 return to 75 percent and is trading at record highs.
Iron ore is up and oil edged higher after an industry report showed US crude stockpiles and supplies at the American Petroleum Institute both declined. US crude inventories tumbled 1.05 million barrels last week.
Bitcoin saw a sudden drop yesterday after seven straight days of gains for Crypto.

US economic news

In US economic data, housing starts rose by 1.9% to 1.319 million units (forecast: 1.262m) in March. Building permits rose by 2.5% to 1.354 million units (forecast: 1.323m) in March. Industrial production rose by 0.5% (forecast: +0.4%) in March.

In local ecomonic news

The International Monetary Fund left its global economic growth (GDP) forecast unchanged at 3.9% for 2018 and 2019. Australian GDP growth is forecast to print at 3% in 2018 and 3.1% in 2019.

Figures from around the globe

Wall Street closed higher yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9 per cent to close at 24,787, the S&P 500 gained 1.1 per cent to close at 2,706 and the NASDAQ added 1.7 per cent to close at 7281.

European markets closed higher: London’s FTSE added 0.4 per cent, Paris rose 0.8 per cent higher and Frankfurt jumped 1.6%.

Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei added 0.1 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.8 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite declined 1.4 per cent.

Taking all of this into equation, the ASX futures are pointing to a 24 points gain. Yesterday the Australian share market closed flat with the S&P/ASX 200 Index closing at 5842..

Company news

Isentia Group (ASX:ISD) has been made a party to proceedings in the Copyright Tribunal by Meltwater Australia against the Copyright Agency.

Meltwater asserts that the copyright licence proposed by Copyright Agency to meltwater contains charges that are unreasonable.

Proceedings commenced back in November 2017.

The licence is based on an industry model that can be applied to all media intelligence organisations requiring a licence from the Copyright Agency.

The Copyright Tribunal will determine whether the claim is well-founded.

The conduct and outcome of the Proceedings will be highly relevant to Isentia and CAL in respect of the Future Licence.

Isentia (ASX:ISD) is APAC’s leading integrated Media Intelligence and Insights business with operations in 11 countries.

Shares in Insentia Group (ASX:ISD) closed 2.4% higher to 86c ($0.86)

Ex-dividends

Just one company are going ex-dividend today:
Washington H. Soul Pattinson (ASX:SOL) 23 cents at 100 per cent franked.

Currencies

One Australian Dollar at 7:45AM was buying US77.71 cents, 54.39 Pence Sterling, 83.19 Yen and 62.83 Euro cents.

Commodities

Iron ore futures are pointing to a 1.4 per cent gain.
Gold dropped 20c to $US1350.50 an ounce.
Silver has added $0.11 to $US16.79 an ounce.
Oil has gained $0.46 to $US66.66 a barrel.

Cryptocurrencies

The three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading lower: Bitcoin has lost 0.9 per cent to US$7935, Ethereum dropped 0.1 per cent to US$505 and Verge has lost 15 per cent to US$0.8.

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