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Good morning and a happy Thursday. The ASX200 is tipped to post modest gains of +0.16% on Thursday per futures at 8.30am Sydney time.
That expectation for a modest gain follows modest gains on Wall Street overnight. The NASDAQ ended up just under one tenth of a percent; the S&P500 was nearly flat.
It appears the prospect of a wider conflict in the Middle East is weighing on optimism; apartment buildings in central Beirut were hit by Israeli strikes overnight.
In Australia, we get local international trade data today, as well as private business activity data from Judo Bank.
On the ASX, reports indicate Morgan Stanley and Bank of America are looking for buyers in Pilbara Minerals, the most heavily shorted stock on the market.
Myer, meanwhile, trades ex-dividend today, and Westpac is expected to rake in nearly $1B from the sale of its auto finance loan book to Resimac Group.
And if you’ve been waiting for the Guzman Gomez story to falter, get this – at least one report indicates Goldman Sachs is recommending its clients sell shares in the burrito chain.
Turning to forex, the Aussie is currently buying 69 US cents.
Looking at commodities which are in the greenback:
Iron ore continues to sit around $108/tn in Singapore, still lifted by last week’s China stimulus announcement.
Brent Crude sits just below $75/bbl as the world watches the Middle East.
Gold prices are sitting just under $2,660 per ounce; surprising nobody, the price is up nearly 7% across the last month alone.
Finally, US natgas is fetching $2.90 a gigajoule; weather and geopolitics have helped push those prices 30% higher over the last month.
That’s Market Open, I’m Jonathon Davidson, we’ll be with you later for a trading update.
