Local Markets Commentary

The Australian market opens today’s trade on scant overnight equities encouragement, but mixed commodities leads, amid simmering geopolitical tension and ahead of key data out of the US and Europe tomorrow.

In overnight commodities trade, gold rallied. Oil swung higher. LME copper pulled back. Nickel continued to rally.

Due to a public holiday in Singapore yesterday, no new China port prices were recorded for iron ore. Dalian futures fell, however.

The $A settled into relatively narrow-range trade. Early yesterday evening it slipped below US78.75c before being propelled beyond US78.90c again.

Locally today, the Melbourne Institute publishes a monthly inflation expectations report.

Regionally, Japan is scheduled to release July producer prices 9.50am AEST.

This morning, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has held the overnight cash rate at 1.75% and confirmed previous forecasts.

Overseas Market Commentary

US equities markets settled a little lower again overnight, pushed and pulled by oil and gold price gains, mixed corporate revelations, further Federal Reserve commentary and a batch of economic indicators.

US-North Korea tension did not appear to significantly influence equities trade.

Major European equities markets traded lower, however, another security breach in Paris seeming to add to early jitters.

In US data releases, a June quarter productivity report estimated growth at 0.9%, following 0.1% for the March quarter. Labour costs came in 1.2% higher.

June wholesale inventories rose 0.7% for the month.

Weekly mortgage applications increased by 3% on more favourable rates, following a 2.8% drop the previous week and

In the meantime, a US Federal Reserve regional president promoted near-term trimming of the bank’s asset holdings, and caution on any new rates moves.

Tonight in the US, weekly new unemployment claims are due, together with July producer prices and the July budget statement. A CPI update is keenly anticipated tomorrow night.

Across the Atlantic, the UK will report trade and industrial output figures in the same session a significant number of large-profile stocks trades ex-dividend on the FTSE 100.

Acer, Glencore, Kohl’s Macy’s, News Corporation, Petrobras, Prudential, Snap and Yokohama Rubber are among companies scheduled to report earnings later today and tonight.

Anglo American, AstraZeneca, Barclays, BP, BT, Diageo, GKN, GlaxoSmithKline, Lloyds, Rio Tinto, ThyssenKrupp and Shell trade ex-dividend on the FTSE 100.

In overnight corporate news, Mylan deferred this year’s planned launch of two new generic drugs, citing regulatory uncertainty.

A weak Priceline (travel specialist) outlook pushed the stock 7% lower on the S&P 500.

Meanwhile, Disney was pushed ~4% lower on its late-Tuesday quarterly figures, including revenue which undershot expectations.

Disney’s plans to directly broadcast products, rather than use Netflix, sent Netflix also lower.