The Australian share market is expected to open higher today after US stocks rose on Friday on the back of stronger than expected employment data. Wall Street also shrugged off talk of a trade war between the US and China, despite the introduction of trade tariffs between the countries. US Investors focused on strong jobs growth with shares of Apple and Microsoft both up over a per cent. While Biogen’s shares surged by almost 20 per cent after the bio tech company announced a positive Alzheimer's disease drug trial.
Global oil prices were mixed on Friday, Saudi Arabia and Russia increased production pushing the brent crude price lower. Iron ore rose by 0.2 per cent but was down 2.8 per cent for the week. The Aussie dollar was stronger against the US.
US economic newsNon-farm payrolls rose by 213,000 in June, higher than an expected gain of 195 000. Unemployment, however, rose slightly to 4 per cent from 3.8 per cent in May. Wage growth also missed expectations, climbing 2.7 percent on a year-over-year basis. Economists expected growth of 2.8 percent.
Local economic newsOn Tuesday the National Australia Bank issues its business survey for June while on Wednesday the monthly consumer confidence figures are released as well as data on home loans. On Thursday we can expect estimates on credit and debit card lending.
MarketsWall Street closed higher on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.4 per cent to close at 24,456, the S&P 500 gained 0.9 per cent to close at 2,760 and the NASDAQ was up 1.3 per cent to close at 7688.
European markets closed higher on Friday: London’s FTSE added 0.2 per cent, Paris gained 0.2 per cent and Frankfurt increased 0.3 per cent.
Asian markets closed higher on Friday, Tokyo’s Nikkei closed 1.1% higher, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.5% and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.5%.
On the futures markets, the ASX futures are pointing to a 26 pts gain. On Friday, the Australian share market closed higher with the S&P/ASX 200 Index gaining 57 points to close at 6272.
Company news:NEXTDC
(ASX:NXT) has announced the completion of its notes IV offering raising $300 million. The senior unsecured notes offering was a complementary security to the $300 million raised by the company in May 2017. The data centre operator will use the proceeds for general business and financing purposes, including investment in the development of new data centre sites. Shares in NEXTDC
(ASX:NXT) closed 0.14 per cent lower to $7.31 on Friday.
Ex Dividends:One company is going ex dividend today:
Paygroup
(ASX:PYG) is paying 1.45c unfranked
Currencies: One Australian Dollar at 7:40AM was buying US74.35 cents, 55.86 Pence Sterling, 82.14 Yen and 63.29 Euro cents
Commodities:
Iron ore futures are flat
Gold has lost $3.00 to $US1256 an ounce.
Silver has fallen 3c to $US16.07 an ounce.
Oil gained 86c to $US73.80 a barrel.
Cryptocurrencies:The three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading higher: Bitcoin has added 2.9 per cent to US$6,799, Ethereum has added 4.8 per cent to US$492 and EOS has gained 2.8 per cent to US$8.76.
