Market Open: ASX200 set to shed another 0.8%

The pain’s set to intensify today, with a 0.8 per cent fall predicted on the ASX200.

Retail sales figures in the US came in better than expected, and with fears the Israel, Iran conflict could escalate, gold rose and so did bond yields.

The Nasdaq fell 1.8 per cent, the S&P500 dropped a per cent and the Dow Jones well over half a per cent (0.65%). Customer Relationship Manager platform company, Salesforce, lost more than 7%, with Apple and Visa also losing ground.

There’ll be important data out of China today – it’ll release its gross domestic product figures for the quarter to March.

Perhaps providing insights for this, Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) will this morning provide an update to its production for the same period.

To other news, a public hearing for the supermarket pricing Senate Committee inquiry will continue in Canberra – it involves Woolworths Group (ASX:WOW), Bunnings and Coles Group (ASX:COL); there’s also a public hearing in Queensland into regional bank closures, while The State Entertainment Group (ASX:SGR) will continue to front the NSW Inquiry into its Sydney casino operations.

In other stocks to watch, Telix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:TLX) has been granted Fast Track Designation by the US Food and Drug Administration for its brain tumour imaging product TLX 101-CDx; A subsidiary of Southern Cross Electrical Engineering (ASX:SXE) has been awarded work at data centres in New South Wales and the ACT totalling about $50 million; and Wia Gold (ASX:WIA) has upped its gold resource in Namibia to 2.12 million ounces.

The Australian dollar has fallen to five-month low of US64.4c, gold is around US$2385 (A$3700) an ounce, iron ore’s been trading just above US$106 a tonne, brent crude is above US$90.50 a barrel, and natural gas has taken a fall of nearly 5 per cent to US$1.68 per million British thermal units.