Market Opener – 26 Mar 2019
Local Markets Commentary
The Australian market opens today’s trade following fragileovernight international equities trade sentiment with significantannouncements from several high-profile domestic stocks.In overnight commodities trade, WTI crude settled modestlylower but Brent swung higher.US gold futures (April) picked up the pace of Friday’s move higher.Iron ore (China port, 62% Fe) turned slightly lower.LME copper settled a little higher, but most base metals recordeddeclines.The $A was propelled beyond US71.10c after appreciating toUS70.95c early yesterday evening.
Locally today, a weekly consumer sentiment reading is due pretrade.Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) assistant governor (economic)Luci Ellis was scheduled to speak on What’s Up (and Down) withHouseholds? at a Housing Industry Association industry outlookbreakfast earlier this morning.Regionally, New Zealand has this morning reported a $NZ6.62Btrade deficit as at 28 February, against the end-January $NZ6.45Bdeficit. For the month, the trade balance rose $NZ12M.In Japan, a summary of opinions from the 14 – 15 March Bank ofJapan policy meeting is expected 10.50am AEDT.
Overseas Markets Commentary
Marked choppy trade and swings featured across major Europeanand US equities markets overnight.Among new data releases, the US Chicago Fed February nationalactivity index came in at -0.29 against -0.25 for January.A manufacturing index for the Texas region fell 4.8 points to 8.3.An IFO business climate index for Germany improved by 0.9 to99.6.In the UK, speculation grew regarding possible new parliamentaryresignations as MPs considered three new sideline votesregarding what to do next in relation to separating from theEuropean Union (EU).A new overnight vote on the negotiated UK-EU proposedarrangements was ruled out.Tonight in the US, February building starts and housing permits,two residential property price indices, a consumer confidencereading and regional manufacturing index are due.Bright Dairy & Food, Carnival Corp, China Citic Bank, CITIC HeavyIndustries, Dalian Port PDA, Hunan Gold, United Utilities, Vale andYunnan Aluminium are among stocks scheduled to reportearnings or provide an update later today and tonight.In overnight corporate news, Apple achieved the launch of itsmuch-anticipated video and expanded TV streaming service,together with news and games subscriptions and an AppleGoldman Sachs credit card.
26/03/2019 7:00:00 AM