Wall Street weaker: Aus shares to fall at the open

The Australian share market looks set to fall at the open this morning following negative leads from Wall Street on Friday. The three major US benchmarks closed lower on Friday capping off a volatile week for investors as rising tariff fears and a tech sector sell off led to broad losses. Reports the US is preparing to place tariffs on an additional $267 billion of Chinese goods saws shares in Apple fall by almost 1 per cent. Meantime, positive wages growth has also increased the prospect of higher interest rates when the Federal Reserve meets later this month.

Gold fell on Friday as the dollar resumed its rally versus a basket of currencies including the Aussie dollar. Meantime, oil prices were also lower for the third straight session, weighed down by a strong US dollar, weakness in the equity markets, and Tropical Storm Gordon's smaller-than-expected impact on U.S. oil production.

US economic news:

Nonfarm payrolls surged by 201,000 jobs last month beating analyst expectations of 191 000. Meantime, average hourly earnings increased 0.4 percent, lifting annual wage growth from 2.7 to 2.9 per cent. Strengthening wage growth increases the likelihood of a third interest rate rise from the Federal Reserve this year when policymakers meet later this month.

Local economic news

On Tuesday NAB releases the business conditions survey for August, on Wednesday we can expect monthly consumer confidence figures and the Reserve Bank releases the July credit and debit card activity data and finally on Thursday the August Labour Force figures are released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Global markets

Wall Street closed lower on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.3 per cent to close at 25,917, the S&P 500 lost 0.2 per cent at 2872 and the NASDAQ closed 0.3 per cent lower to 7903.

European markets closed mixed London’s FTSE dropped 0.6 per cent, Paris gained 0.2 per cent and Frankfurt gained 0.04 per cent.

Asian markets closed also mixed on Friday, Tokyo’s Nikkei closed 0.8 per cent lower, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng almost flat losign 0.01 per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 0.4 per cent.

On the futures markets, the SPI futures are pointing to a 23pts drop. On Friday, the Australian share market closed lower with the S&P/ASX 200 Index closing 17 points lower to 6144.

Company news

Blockchain technology company, Digital X (ASX:DCC) has announced the resignation of Non-Executive Director, Toby Hicks. Mr Hicks has been with the company since 2016 and played an integral role in the turn around of the company, that ultimately saw Digital X record its first net profit in the 2018 financial year. Hicks will continue to support the company with legal advice going forward.

Shares in Digital X (ASX:DCC) closed gained 4.8 per cent to 11 cents on Friday.

Ex Dividends



Currencies

One Australian Dollar at 7:30AM was buying US71.03 cents, 54.98 Pence Sterling, 78.89 Yen and 61.49 Euro cents.

Commodities

Iron ore futures are pointing to a 0.2% gain.
Gold has dropped $3.90 to $US1200 an ounce.
Silver was down 1c to $US14.17 an ounce.
Oil lost 2c to $US67.75 a barrel.

Cryptocurrencies

The three most traded cryptocurrencies are trading higher: Bitcoin has added 3.3 per cent to US$6418 , Ethereum has added 3 per cent to US$202 and EOS has GAINE 8.9 per cent to US$5.13.