Despite a mostly higher session on Wall Street overnight, with the S&P500 snapping its four-day down trend and the Nasdaq up 0.7 per cent, the local bourse has slipped back into the red.
We’ve seen the biggest falls in the Energy stocks, with WorleyParsons
(ASX:WOR) shares slipping after Jacobs Engineering reduced its stake in the company, while the WTI price trades at month highs.
Tech stocks are shining today with Zip
(ASX:Z1P), Appen
(ASX:APX), Afterpay
(ASX:APT) and Wisetech
(ASX:WTC) rallying.
The S&P/ASX 200 index is 12 points or 0.2 per cent lower at 6,655. On the futures market the SPI is 18 points lower.
Local economic newsPrivate sector credit (outstanding loans) remaining at the same 0.2 per cent growth rate in the month of May, compared to April (according to the RBA), as expected. Meantime year-on-year loans rose 3.6 per cent, less than forecast and the prior reading, from the same time last year (of 4.8 per cent).
Broker movesCiti increased its price target for Ansell
(ASX:ANN) from $28.50 to $31.00. It comes as Citi originally assumed there would be $500 million of acquisitions over the next few years, but Citi has now delayed this, given it’s the end of the 2019 financial year. As a result, as Citi delayed its capital deployment by 12 months and it also maintained its Buy position in the stock.
Company newsCenturia Industrial REIT
(ASX:CIP) completed a $70 million capital raise, after completing a fully underwritten institutional placement. The new 23 million new CIP shares, with a price of $3.05 are set to trade on Wednesday, 3 July 2019. The funds will be used to buy three industrial assets valued at $59.3 million in total, with a further $10 million of the funds earmarked for capital expenditure to enhance the assets. Centuria Industrial REIT is also planning to raise up to $5 million (at the same price $3.05) via a share purchase plan, which they call a unit purchase plan (UPP). Shares in Centuria Industrial REIT
(ASX:CIP) are trading 4.1 per cent lower at $3.06 at noon.
NEXTDC Limited
(ASX:NXT) appointed Mr Stephen M. Smith as a non-executive director, effective 1 July 2019. He was CEO and President of Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX) for over a decade (2007-2018), and grew the business into the largest data centre platform in the world. With Steve at the helm, he grew Equinix’ data centres from 17 to 200 and he also grew its market cap from US$2 billion to US$38 billion. NEXTDC Limited
(ASX:NXT) shares in NEXTDC are trading 1.8 per cent higher at $6.48 at noon.
Best and worst performersThe best-performing sector is S&P/ASX Info Tech, adding 0.8 per cent, while the worst performing sector is S&P/ASX Energy, shedding 1.4 per cent.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Pact Group Holdings Ltd
(ASX:PGH), rising 8.7 per cent to $2.76, followed by shares in Resolute Mining Limited
(ASX:RSG) and Appen Limited
(ASX:APX).
The worst performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Growthpoint Properties Australia (ASX GOZ), dropping 3.1 per cent to $4.13, followed by shares in Mayne Pharma Group
(ASX:MYX) and Worleyparsons Limited
(ASX:WOR).
Asian marketsJapan’s Nikkei has lost 0.5 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has shed 0.5 per cent and the Shanghai Composite has lost 0.5 per cent.
Commodities and the dollar Gold is at US$1,423 an ounce.
Iron ore price 0.3 per cent higher to US$118.02
Iron Ore futures are eyeing a rise of 2 per cent gain.
One Australian dollar is buying 70.02 US cents
