Market Open: Climbing into the weekend

The ASX200 is tipped to rise about half a per cent on open this morning, following a night of well-received earnings reports on Wall Street and relief around interest rates. All three US indexes made gains, although the standout was the Nasdaq, which added 1.5%.

Back home and monthly spending data is due for release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics today.

Macquarie Group (ASX:MQG) has announced its full year net profit is down more than 30 per cent to $3.52 billion, partly blaming the performance of ‘green’ investments. The value of its assets under management were up 7% in the 12 months to the end of March to more than $938 billion.

Uranium company Haranga Resources (ASX:HAR) has been sampling from termite mounds at its Saraya Project in Senegal and reports its identified an 8^th uranium anomaly in the process; and, Kula Gold (ASX:KGD) is starting reverse circulation (RC) drilling at its Boomerang Gold Prospect near Southern Cross in Western Australia.

One Australian dollar has been buying US65.6 cents, gold is down – just hanging on above US$2300; iron ore has been up around US$117.20, brent crude has been around US$83.85 and natural gas has been trading just above US$2 per million British thermal units.