China agrees to US trade talks: ASX set to open higher

Market Reports

by Rachael Jones

Australian shares are set to open higher today as US stocks rebounded when China declared it would hold trade talks with the US later this month. Turkey's lira keeps climbing - Qatar has pledged to invest $US15 billion to help
Walmart reported its best sales growth in more than a decade. The retail giant could be making a move to Australia. On the commodities front, oil has gained slightly after a slide on wednesday and gold has dropped $4.00. 

Markets 

To the figures from around the globe: Wall Street closed higher on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.6 per cent higher to close at 25,559, the S&P 500 added 0.8 per cent to close at 2,841 and the NASDAQ increased 0.4 per cent to close at 7807.

European markets closed higher yesterday: London’s FTSE added 0.8 per cent, Paris was up 0.8 per cent and Frankfurt gained 0.6 per cent.

Asian markets closed lower, Tokyo’s Nikkei fell 0.1 per cent lower, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped 0.8 per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite lost 0.7 per cent.

On the futures markets, the ASX futures are pointing to a 2 points fall. Yesterday, the Australian share market flat with the S&P/ASX 200 Index losing 0.7 points to close at 6329.

Company news

Homeloans (ASX:HOM) says its wholly owned subsidiary RESIMAC has settled a $1 billion residential mortgage-backed security funding transaction - the Bastille Series 2018-1NC. Homeloans is a leading non-bank residential mortgage lender - they merged with RESIMAC back in 2016. The Homeloans Group has in excess of 50,000 customers with a portfolio of mortgages on balance sheet of greater than $8 billion and assets under management of greater than $12bn. Through RESIMAC, Homeloans is one of Australia’s most respected securitisation programs. Shares in Homeloans (ASX:HOM) closed flat at $0.60 yesterday

Reporting Season

- Goodman Group (ASX:GMG)
- Kogan.com (ASX:KGN)
- Link Administration Holdings (ASX:LNK)
- MyState (ASX:MYS)
- Silex Systems (ASX:SLX)

Ex-dividends

Dicker Data (ASX:DDR) is paying 4.4c fully franked
Domain Holdings (ASX:DHG) is paying 4c, 70 franked
Global Construction (ASX:GCS) is paying 2.5c fully franked
SRG (ASX:SRG) is paying 4.5c fully franked

Commodities

Iron ore futures are pointing to 0.4 per cent fall.
Gold dropped $4.00 to $US1181 an ounce.
Silver was up 19 cent at $US14.64 an ounce.
Oil added $0.38 to $US64.84 a barrel.

Cryptocurrencies

The three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading lower: Bitcoin has lost 1.7 per cent to US$6297, Ethereum has dropped 1.3 per cent to US$286 and EOS was down 4.5 per cent to US$4.52.
 

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