Wall Street ends in the red: Aus shares to open lower

Market Reports

by Anna Napoli

Following weak leads from the US, the Australian share market looks set to open lower. Wall Street's major indexes slipped on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve indicated it is committed to raising interest rates moving forward. But it wasn't all bad news, Netflix popped over 5 per cent after posting third quarter earnings which easily beat expectations. The strong results were driven by stronger-than-expected subscriber growth in both the U.S. and overseas.

On the commodities front, Oil prices were lower on Wednesday, after U.S. stockpiles rose by 6.5 million barrels, almost triple what analysts had forecast. The gold price also edged lower as the US dollar firmed.

Local economic news

Today the focus will be on the September jobs report from the ABS

Markets

Wall Street closed lower yesterday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost/gained 0.4 per cent to close at 25707, the S&P 500 dropped 0.03 per cent to close at 2809 and the NASDAQ lost 0.04 per cent to close at 7643.

European markets lower: London’s FTSE lost 0.1 per cent, Paris shed 0.5 per cent and Frankfurt also declined 0.5 per cent.

Asian markets closed up: Tokyo’s Nikkei added 1.3 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was closed for a public holiday, and China’s Shanghai Composite gained 0.6 per cent.

Taking all of this into equation, the SPI futures are pointing to a 25 points fall. Yesterday the Australian share market closed higher with the S&P/ASX 200 Index closing 69 points higherat 5939.

Company news

Yancoal (ASX:YAL) has paid down another $100 million in loans to further reduce its existing debt liabilities. The coal miner has now made a total of $900 million in debt pre-payments since the completion of the companies acquisitionof Coal & Allied Industries from Rio Tinto last year. Shares in Yancoal (ASX:YAL) closed 2.4 per cent higher at 4.30.

Ex-dividends

Aust Vintage Ltd (ASX:AVG) 1.5 fully franked,
K & S Corporation (ASX:KSC) is paying 2 cents fully franked
Perpetual Equity Ltd (ASX:PIC) is paying 3.3 cents fully franked

Currencies

One Australian Dollar at 7:25AM was buying 71.08 US cents, 54.20 Pence Sterling, 80.04 Yen and 61.82 Euro cents.

Commodities

Gold has lost $5.50 to US$1226 an ounce.
Silver has lost $0.07 to US$14.63 an ounce.
Oil has lost $1.74 to US$70.02 a barrel.

Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin has fallen 0.7 per cent to US$6537, Ethereum dropped about 1.3 per cent to US$206, and XRPgained about 0.8 per cent to $0.47


 

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