Tech stocks rallied strongly on Wall Street and all three benchmarks closed up. Due to this we can see Australian shares opening higher this morning. Facebook led the tech rally by jumping over 9 per cent higher after posting better than expected results, despite the concerns over the misuse of peoples private data.
The Dow Jones went up, with Visa being the best-performing stock in the index. And Amazon topped analysts' forecasts, buoyed by a rise in Prime subscribers. Oil went up but gold slumped and Iron Ore Futures went up 0.32 per cent.
Local ecomonic newsProducer Price Indexes for March are due out today from the Australia Bureau of Statistics. This measures the change in the price of goods and services sold by producers, and is a gauge of inflation — which is currently below the Reserve Bank's target of 2-3 per cent a year.
Figures from around the globeWall Street closed higher yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.99 per cent to close at 24,322, the S&P 500 gained 1.04 per cent to close at 2,667 and the NASDAQ added 1.64 per cent to close at 7119.
European markets closed higher: London’s FTSE added 0.6 per cent, Paris rose 0.7 per cent higher and Frankfurt gained 0.6%.
Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei added 0.5 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.1 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 44 points gain. Yesterday the Australian share market closed lower with the S&P/ASX 200 Index closing at 11 points lower at 5911.
Company news AusCann
(ASX:AC8) released its March quarter results showing a strengthening of key partnerships. Throughout this period the company welcomed the Australian Government’s decision to allow cannabinoid medicines to be exported.
They also entered an agreement with Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Limited
(ASX:API), and commenced operations to produce final dose cannabinoid pharmaceuticals for the domestic and international markets with Tasmanian Alkaloids.They are also working with Canopy Growth Corporation (TSX:WEED) to become principal suppliers of medical cannabis products to the Australian market. AusCann ended the quarter with approximately $11.89 million in cash and is wellfunded to maintain its operational momentum in Q4FY18 and beyond.
Shares in AusCann
(ASX:AC8) closed 8.64 per cent higher at $1.76
Ex-dividendsFour companies are going ex-dividend today:
AMA Group
(ASX:AMA)Aurora dividend income trust
(ASX:AOD)MFF Capital Investments
(ASX:MFF)Steam Ships trading company
(ASX:SST) paying $0.14 unfranked
Currencies One Australian Dollar at 7:30AM was buying US75.55 cents, 54.27 Pence Sterling, 82.57 Yen and 62.39 Euro cents.
Commodities Gold dropped $5 lower to $US1318 an ounce.
Silver has lost $0.03 to $US16.48 an ounce.
Oil has gained $0.11 to $US68.16 a barrel.
CryptocurrenciesThe three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading lower: Bitcoin has gained 0.45 per cent to US$9143, Ethereum gained 1.73 per cent to US$651 and EOS has gained 0.09 per cent to US$15.
