Good morning fellow traders and welcome to a new week.
The Australian stock market is expected to fall around 25 points or 0.4 of a per cent when it opens on Monday due a decline in the oil price and weakness in the European and US markets.
CommSec chief economist Craig James says the 2.5 per cent drop in the oil price, due to investors cashing in on the week's strong gains, will weigh down the energy sector on Monday but overall the ASX is performing well despite last week's slightly softer results.
"You have these ebbs and flows over time," he said.
Looking ahead, the release of the Consumer Price Index figures for the June quarter on Wednesday is data investors should watch out for.
Mr James said he expected to see continued soft
inflation figures.
"We're looking for half of one per cent growth."
It's likely the headline inflation rate will be 2.2 per cent and the underlying rate around 1.7 per cent once volatile items, such as petrol prices, are stripped out.
This is edging into the Reserve Bank's target band, Mr James said.
"So the Reserve Bank would look at that and say inflation is still not a problem."
But investors should keep an eye on the results as an increase beyond these figures may indicate inflation is starting to trickle through and coupled with Australia's strong economic data, it may lead the market to assume the Reserve Bank is about to increase interest rates.
"So that figure on Wednesday certainly does have the potential to move markets," Mr James said.
A soft reading on inflation will result in the Reserve Bank taking no action and cause the Australian dollar to fall back, but a reading of 0.6 or 0.7 of one per cent growth will show inflation is higher and the economy is doing well.
This could kick the Aussie dollar up even higher, he said.
U.S. stocks ticked lower on Friday as weak earnings from industrial giant General Electric weighed, while tech shares retreated from record highs and energy tracked the price of oil lower.
The S&P 500 energy sector .SPNY fell more than 1 percent as oil prices lost nearly 3 percent, after a consultancy report forecast a rise in OPEC production for July despite the cartel's pledge to curb output.
The S&P 500 technology sector .SPLRCT slipped after posting two consecutive record closing highs. The Nasdaq Composite was on track to cap a 10-day streak of gains, its best since February 2015, after closing at a record high on Thursday.
Tech continues to be the best performing S&P sector this year despite concerns over stretched valuations.
Source: Netwealth Morning Business Roundup.
Enjoy some scrambled egg on toast for breakky.
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It's World Tell an Old Joke Day. If things get slow .......
How many forum members does it takes to change a light bulb?
1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
10 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
5 to flame the spell checkers
3 to correct spelling/grammar flames
6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb" ... another 6 to condemn those 6 as stupid
2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is "lamp"
15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry, and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct
19 to post that this forum is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb forum
11 to defend the posting to this forum saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this forum
36 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty
7 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs
4 to post that the URL's were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL's
3 to post about links they found from the URL's that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group
13 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too"
5 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy
4 to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago?"
13 to say "do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs"
18 who trip over each other in their rush to say "repost!"
1 forum lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again.
