Local Markets Commentary

The Australian market commences today’s trade again on little change from major international equities overnight trade.

In commodities trade, US gold futures continued modestly higher. Oil fell. Copper turned lower. Iron ore picked up the pace of its pull back.

The $A moved in a narrow range after reaching ~US77.30c yesterday evening.

Locally today, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) publishes March policy meeting minutes, 11.30am AEDST.

Pre-trade, a weekly consumer sentiment report is due. The ABS also releases a December quarter residential property price report today.

Overseas Market Commentary

Choppy trade featured across major European and US equities markets overnight with little ultimate effect on most major indices.

The UK government announced plans to commence formal processes to separate from the European Union 29 March (Wednesday next week).

In the US, the Chicago Fed national activity index came in at 0.34 following -0.05 for January.

Euro zone December quarter wages growth was confirmed at 1.6% year-on-year.

Germany’s producer prices rose 0.2% for the month and 3.1% year-on-year.

Tonight in the US, initial March manufacturing and services sector PMIs, a current account update and a regional manufacturing index are due.

In the UK, Bank of England governor Mark Carney is scheduled to speak publicly ahead of Thursday’s monetary policy meeting.

FedEx, Garuda and Nike are among companies listed to report earnings today and tonight.

In overnight corporate news, Deutsche Bank news and activity sparked concerns which appeared to impact general finance sector sentiment.