Day Trading Pre-market Open – 4 Apr 2019

Once again welcome to the place between the night and the start of the day’s trading.
Thanks @ttward, @Ravgnome, the aftermarket loungers, @Oscar09 and @highlandlad.
Hello for when you check up on me @Bugsam.

Excerpts from CommSec Daily Report after close on 3^rd April
Evening Report
The Aussie market has continued its recent run of gains for a seventh straight day and hitting the best levels in around seven months. The ASX 200 was higher throughout the day and survived a slight wobble in the afternoon to close 43 points or 0.7% higher at 6285.

There was little from last night’s budget to move the market today with the main driver of the recent improvements coming from a lift in confidence for economic growth and activity. Recent economic data releases in China and the US have seen better than expected results while there are hopes that US-China trade tensions are easing and moving towards a possible deal.

While gains were generally across the board, miners did much of the heavy lifting. Iron ore players such as BHP Group (BHP), Rio Tinto (RIO) and Fortescue Metals (FMG) benefitting from the rise in high quality iron ore prices. Supply of late has been hampered for major producers, including the likes of BHP and RIO, due to tropical cyclone Veronica impacting WA operations in the Pilbara. BHP rose 2.2%, RIO climbed 1.9% while FMG was 1.8% higher.

The energy sector was the main laggard and the only sector to close in negative territory. Beach Energy (BPT) fell 1.9% while Santos eased 0.4%. There were several other pockets of losses with Smartgrp Corporation (SIQ) the worst performer among the top 200 stocks as it fell more than 8%. NZ-based telco, Spark NZ (SPK) also slipped 3.9% as it announced that Managing Director Simon Moutter resigned effective 30 June 2019.

Elsewhere, The a2 Milk Company (A2M) lifted 0.4% as it provided its outlook for the 2H19 at a conference today. Group revenue is expected to be broadly in-line with the first half as they continue to invest in building its brand throughout China. Consequently, 2H19 EBITDA margins will be lower due to the increased marketing spend.

Retailers JB Hi-Fi (JBH) and Harvey Norman (HVN) fell between 2-3% despite better than expected February retail sales numbers. Sales grew 0.8% over the month after flat growth over the previous months. Australia’s trade surplus also improved to $4.8b which helped to lift the AUD to 71.08 US cents. Today, 2.4b units were traded worth $6.1b. 586 stocks higher, 542 lower and 408 unchanged.
Tonight in the US, the ADP employment survey together with the ISM services index.
(James Tao (Author))

American markets currently in positive territory again, 6:58 AEDST


Crypto just prior.


Hope you all have a great day out there.

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