Australian shares are set to open higher this morning – albeit only moderately. This comes after a tech rally and a boost in media stocks on Wall Street. Shares in New York were mostly higher with media and techs leading both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq higher. The Dow slipped into the close. Twenty-First Century Fox (NASDAQ:FOXA) gained 7.1 per cent after Walt Disney (NASDAQ:DIS) upped its offer for some of the company's assets to $US71.3 billion, looking to outbid Comcast. FAANG stocks - Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) , Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) , Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) - were also higher. Gold is down but oil is up and iron ore futures are pointing to a gain.
Local economic news No local economic data for today but Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe met with central bankers at a conference in Portugal overnight. He said he is less worried about Australia's low inflation than he is concerned about trying to goose it higher too quickly. He said hes confident we will get it back to 2.5 per cent – but its going to take some time.
Figures from around the globe: Wall Street closed mixed yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session 0.2 per cent lower to close at 24,658, the S&P 500 added 0.2 per cent to close at 2,767 and the NASDAQ gained 0.7 per cent to close at 7782.
European markets closed mixed yesterday: London’s FTSE added 0.3 per cent, Paris fell 0.3 per cent and Frankfurt gained 0.1 per cent.
Asian markets closed lower yesterday, Tokyo’s Nikkei closed 1.2 per cent higher yesterday, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.8% and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.3%.
On the futures markets, the ASX futures are pointing to a 11 pts gain. Yesterday, the Australian share market closed higher with the S&P/ASX 200 Index gaining 70 points to close at 6173.
Company news ANZ
(ASX:ANZ) Banking Group has appointed a new group treasurer – Adrian Went. He will be reporting to Chief Financial Officer Michelle Jablko. He is currently responsible for credit and capital management for the bank's Financial Institutions Group. ANZ's current treasurer, Rick Moscati, was among those charged earlier this month over allegations regarding an ANZ share issue in 2015. Went will take charge in July and will be based in Melbourne.
Shares in ANZ
(ASX:ANZ) closed 2.74 per cent higher to $27.72 yesterday.
Ex-DividendsOne company going ex-dividend today
Fisher & Paykel H.
(ASX:FPH) paying 11.44 cents unfranked
Currencies One Australian Dollar at 7:40AM was buying US73.70 cents,
55.95 Pence Sterling,
81.33 Yen,
63.71 Euro cents.
Commodities Iron ore futures are pointing to a 0.6 per cent gain.
Gold has lost $8.60 to $US1270 an ounce.
Silver was down 4c to $US16.28 an ounce.
Oil was up 44c to $US65.34 a barrel.
CryptocurrenciesThe three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading mixed:
Bitcoin has gained 0.3 per cent to US$6,771,
Ethereum has dropped 0.2 per cent to US$534,
EOS has fallen over 1 per cent to US$10.50.
