Wall St dips on Powell's remarks: ASX set to open higher

Market Reports

by Rachael Jones

Australian shares are set to open higher this morning as US stocks rose yesterday. They did dip slightly after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks about shrinking the central bank’s balance sheet. But by mid afternoon trade Wall Street gained with all three major benchmarks returning to positive territory

Local economic news

The AiG will release performance of construction for December. And the Australian Bureau of statistics will release retail sales figures for November.

Markets

Wall Street closed up yesterday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5 per cent to close at 24,002, the S&P 500 added 0.5 per cent to close at 2,597 and the NASDAQ gained 0.4 per cent to close at 6,986.

European markets closed mixed: London’s FTSE gained 0.5 per cent, Paris lost 0.2 per cent and Frankfurt gained 0.3 per cent.

Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 1.3 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.2 per cent, and China’s Shanghai Composite lost 0.4 per cent.

Taking all of this into equation, the ASX futures are eyeing a rise of 14 points. Yesterday the Australian share market closed 0.3 per cent higher or 17 points higher at 5,795.

Company news

Screening manufacturer GALE Pacific (ASX:GAP) anticipates pre-tax profit for the six months ended 31 December 2018 to be between $1.25 - $1.35 million, compared to $1.73 million for the previous corresponding period. The result was impacted principally by lower than expected sales in the Australian retail channel during November and December due, in part, to cooler weather conditions. The full year outlook is underpinned by anticipation of continued strong growth in the Americas region. Shares in GALE Pacific (ASX:GAP) closed flat at $0.34 yesterday.

Currencies

One Australian Dollar at 8:30AM was buying 71.85 US cents, 56.37 Pence Sterling, 77.94 Yen and 62.49 Euro cents.

Commodities

Iron Ore has lost 0.7 per cent to US$73.36. It futures suggest a 0.3 per cent gain.
Gold has lost $5.00 to US$1287 an ounce.
Silver has lost $0.13 to US$15.61 an ounce.
Oil has gained $0.29 to US$52.78 a barrel.
 

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