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Market Opener – 19 Sep 2018

 
Local Markets Commentary
The Australian market commences midweek trade following positive overnight US equities trade and price gains for a range of commodities, ahead of some key regional reports and data.

In overnight commodities trade, oil swung higher and rallied. 

US (December) gold futures turned to settle slightly lower.

Iron ore (62% Fe, China port) reportedly rose.

LME copper, nickel and aluminium turned higher, although aluminium settled only slightly so. 

The $A has appreciated to approach US72.30c after trading at US72.05c early yesterday evening.

Regionally today, the Bank of Japan reveals outcomes following the conclusion of a policy meeting 1pm AEST.

August trade figures for Japan are expected 9.50am.

The leaders of South Korea and North Korea in the meantime will continue their joint meetings in North Korea through to the end of the week.

Locally today, a Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) assistant governor speaks publicly on money creation at 11.30am AEST.

Westpac and the Melbourne Institute publish their monthly leading index report 10.30am.

Overseas Market Commentary
US equities markets opened higher and mostly continued to trend so overnight.

Major European equities indices diverged, the FTSE 100 swinging and chopping markedly.

New US import taxes on goods from China from next week were revealed to contain more exceptions than anticipated, indicating submissions from businesses and economists were noted.

Exceptions to new tariffs included for rare earths, natural graphite and some tungsten.

In return, China pledged to increase import taxes on a relatively constrained $US60B worth of US goods, including LNG, chemicals, agriculture products and computing equipment.

In addition, the new tariffs were lowered, and in some cases more than halved, than previously threatened.

Further, a key economic advisor in China proffered that China’s administration still would prefer to negotiate with the US. 

European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi publicly addressed ongoing regional banking sector concerns, advocating co-operation between euro zone governments when regulating financial institution requirements, including those ensuring liquidity.

Tonight in the US, August housing starts and building permits are due, together with weekly mortgage applications. 

Elsewhere, the Bank of England’s chief economist Andy Haldane speaks publicly.

ECB governor Mario Draghi is scheduled to speak publicly for a second consecutive day.
 
19/09/2018 8:00:00 AM

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