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http://www.smh.com.au/business/mark...-of-memorial-day-holiday-20160530-gp7oqw.html
Local shares are set to open flat after a quiet night on global markets due to public holidays in both the US and the UK.
Oil and iron ore continued to oscillate around the $US50 mark, while gold slipped briefly below $US1200 an ounce for the first time this year, following nine straight days of losses.
What you need2know
SPI futures up 4 points or 0.1% to 5414 at 6.30am Sydney time
AUD +0.06% to US71.86¢
Wall Street was closed due to the Memorial Day holiday
In Europe, Stoxx 50 +0.1%, CAC +0.3%, DAX + 0.5%; London closed
Spot gold -0.6% to $US1205.30 an ounce at 6am Sydney time
Brent crude +0.9% to $US49.76 a barrel at 6am Sydney time
Iron ore -1.7% to $US50.27 a tonne at 6am Sydney time.
What's on today
Local: April building approvals; First-quarter net exports and government spending (GDP components); Balance of payments current account balance (Q1), ANZ/Roy Morgan weekly consumer confidence
Overseas data: US personal income, spending and PCE deflators, S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home-price index, Consumer confidence; German CPI, Eurozone unemployment and CPI; Japan jobless rate, household spending, industrial production, and small business confidence;
Europe
European stocks rose to one-month highs in thin trading as investors considered the implications of a possible increase in US interest rates after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Friday said a hike is likely in the coming months, a view also recently expressed by several regional Fed chiefs.
Financial markets in the US and UK were shut for holidays.
While higher US interest rates would sap global liquidity, Wall Street and European investors took Yellen's comments in their stride, as they suggested the world's largest economy was strong enough to weather another rate hike, following from the December hike.
"The return to US rate hike expectations have reopened the possibility of short-term outperformance for European stocks," said Didier Duret, global chief investment officer at ABN-AMRO Private Banking, adding investors were keeping an eye on the dollar for it to break recent ranges.
After starting the year with bullish calls, strategists and analysts have become increasingly skeptical about European equities, projecting flat annual returns in the Stoxx 600 and a decline in corporate profits. Following a mixed earnings season, European investors are facing a referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union and a general election in Spain.
Asia
Japan's Nikkei stock index ended up 1.4 per cent, as the yen weakened to a one-month low and expectations rose that the government would delay a sales tax hike scheduled for April next year.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would delay the increase by 2-1/2 years, Masahiko Komura, vice president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told reporters on Monday. One uncertainty, however, is how markets would react if a postponement of Japan's sales tax hike were to lead to a downgrade of the country's sovereign rating.
China stocks closed marginally higher, with many investors taking to the sidelines amid uncertainty over the monetary policy outlook even as the economy fails to show signs of a sustained recovery.
The uncertain climate is keeping investors from making bets in the country's stock and money markets, sending volumes plunging.
Currencies
The Australian dollar remains on the back foot while the greenback gets a boost from hawkish US Federal Reserve remarks.
Th Aussie was fetching US71.86¢ at 6am after a quiet night on currency markets.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index advanced 0.1 per cent, bringing its gain in May to 3.6 per cent.The euro gained after a report showed economic confidence in the 19-nation currency bloc rose for a second month in May to a four-month high. The currency climbed 0.2 per cent to $US1.1139, paring the decline this month to 2.7 per cent.
The yuan dropped 0.3 per cent to a four-month low in Shanghai after the People's Bank of China weakened its daily fixing by 0.45 per cent. With the US poised to raise interest rates and pressure building on China to ease monetary policy, cash outflows will accelerate, said Song Yu, China economist for Goldman Sachs/Gao Hua Securities Co. in Beijing.
Commodities
Oil prices inched up toward $US50 a barrel on Monday, although uncertainty ahead of an OPEC producer-group meeting later in the week was expected to cap gains.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets in Vienna on Thursday and most analysts did not expect any changes in the group's production.
While OPEC has been unable to agree on an output freeze to support prices, Iraq was the latest Middle East producer to raise its export quota ahead of the meeting, supplying 5 million barrels of extra crude to its partners in June.
"So far there's pretty much a consensus that nothing will happen and that the same strategies will continue, which are basically produce as much as you want and go for market share," said energy economist James L. Williams of WTRG Economics in Arkansas.
Price moves will be choppy in the run-up to the meeting, Williams added.
Spot gold dropped as much as 1 per cent to $US1199.80 an ounce, a level last seen in February, and is down 6.8 per cent in May, the biggest monthly decline since November 2015.
The ASX yesterday
The
Australian sharemarket eked out a small gain in a choppy day of trade, stumbling around the 5400 level as investors proved reluctant to make major moves ahead of public holidays in the United States and Britain.
The S&P/ASX 200 ended trade up 2 points, or 0.04 per cent, at 5408, while the All Ordinaries closed up 4 points, or 0.07 per cent, at 5473.6.
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/need2know-flat-start-in-store-on-back-of-memorial-day-holiday-20160530-gp7oqw.html#ixzz4AB0x3dqU
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