After a difficult day yesterday and with mixed leads from overseas markets, Australian shares looks set to regain some ground this morning.
News today will focus on Macquarie Group releasing their full year results.
US Economic News
US stocks were muted overnight as investors await the latest jobs figures, due out late today.
Global Markets
Wall Street closed mixed yesterday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 22 points to close at 16,559, the S&P 500 lost less than half a point to close at 1,884 and the NASDAQ gained 13 points to close at 4,127.
European markets closed mixed: London’s FTSE gained 29 points, Paris lost 10 points and Frankfurt is up 19 points.
Asian markets closed mixed: Tokyo’s Nikkei added 181 points, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 320 points, and China’s Shanghai Composite added 6 points.
The Australian share market closed lower yesterday: The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 40 points down to finish at 5,449. On the futures market the SPI is 12 points up.
Currencies
The Australian Dollar at 7:20AM was buying $US0.9270 cents, 54.89 Pence Sterling, 94.83 Yen and 66.87 Euro cents.
Economic news due out today
The Australian Bureau of Statistics are producer price indexes for the March quarter.
The Housing Industry Association’s (HIA) new home sales for March.
Company news
Macquarie Group
(ASX:MQG) will release its full year results today with analysts predicting a strong result.
A $1.2 billion dollar profit is expected, which lies at the top end of the company’s guidance range. While a suggested dividend of around $2.60 would be a 30 per cent increase on last year. Shares in Macquarie Group were 0.87 per cent up yesterday and closed at $58.20. Paladin Energy Limited (ASX:PDN) has appointed a new Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Craig Barnes will take control of the uranium miner’s financial operations on 1 July this year. Shares in Paladin closed 3.45 per cent up yesterday to $0.45.
Commodities
Gold is down $12.50 to $US1,283 an ounce for the June contract on Comex.
Silver is down $0.13 to $19.04 for July.
Copper is down $0.01 at $3.02 a pound.
Oil is down $0.32 at US$99.42 a barrel for June light crude in New York.
