Good morning traders. Thanks @ttward, @Ravgnome & the aftermarket loungers. US markets again resumed their steady rise, heard on Bloomberg this morn they reckon they are seeing greater number of retail investors jumping on board again. You can take that to mean whatever you want, but not exactly helping debunk the "myth" of retail selling the bottom and buying the top...
ASX Market Report
The Australian stockmarket has started the week higher, buoyed by iron ore producers as the price of the resource spiked.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed up 15.3 points, or 0.25 per cent, to 6190.5 points at 1615 AEDT on Monday, while the broader All Ordinaries was up 18.5 points, or 0.3 per cent, at 6283.6.
The mining sector was up a collective 1.09 per cent, with Fortescue Metals the biggest gainer among the ASX200. It was up 5.48 per cent to $6.835, a two-year high. "It's been one of the best turnaround stories again, for a second time," Blue Equities analyst Mathan Somasundaram said of the world's fourth-largest iron ore producer.
On Friday a court in Brazil ordered Vale to suspend operations at its Timbopeba mine, which produces 12.8 million tonnes of iron ore per year, driving the price of the commodity higher. Four per cent of the world's iron ore production has been taken offline since the deadly January 25 Brumadinho dam disaster, and the price of the lower-grade ore that Fortescue mostly produces is at a multi-year high.
Mining giant BHP was up 1.37 per cent, to $36.98, while Rio Tinto was up 1.66 per cent to $93.17.
Utilities and telecom shares led decliners, with both sectors down a little over half a percentage point.
"There isn't a lot of sentiment in the market," said Mr Somasundaram. "It's waiting for a catalyst to move in either direction."
Commonwealth Bank was down 0.69 per cent, to $71.81, after the bank said it would end its long-running dispute with the Australian Taxation Office over a rejected application for a research and development rebate.
ANZ was up 0.23 per cent, to $26.41, and Westpac moved up 0.15 per cent, to $26.52, while NAB lost 0.36 per cent, to $25.12.
REA Group, which owns realestate.com.au, was down 4.38 per cent while rival Domain Holdings was down 1.15 per cent.
Bubs was up 4.76 per cent after the goat milk formula maker announced it was expanding its range of children's snacks.
IOOF was flat despite being the subject of a class action over its alleged failure to tell shareholders about the regulator's interest in possible breaches of superannuation laws.
Telco Telstra was flat, while pharma giant CSL was up 0.44 per cent.
ON THE ASX:
* The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 15.3 points, or 0.25 per cent, to 6190.5 points at 1630 AEDT on Friday.
* The All Ordinaries was up 18.5 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 6283.6.
* At 1630 AEDT, the SPI200 futures index was flat at 6191.
CURRENCY SNAPSHOT AT 1630 AEDT:
One Australian dollar buys:
* 71.12 US cents, from 70.84 US on Friday
* 79.33 Japanese yen, from 79.12
* 62.75 euro cents, from 62.60
* 53.52 British pence, from 53.50
* 103.60 NZ cents, from 103.44
Economic Data March 18-24
(Sorry, forgot to post this yesterday among other things)
In Asia
Asian shares pulled ahead on Monday while bonds were in demand globally on mounting speculation the U.S. Federal Reserve will sound decidedly dovish at its policy meeting this week.
Japan’s Nikkei advanced 0.59 percent, and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.6 percent.
Shanghai blue chips climbed 1.6 percent.
In Europe
European stocks rose for the fourth session in a row on Monday as a flurry of dealmaking, including merger talks between Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, spurred gains in the financial services sector.
Shares in the two German lenders rose between 4 percent and 7 percent, and boost banking stocks across the region, despite the likelihood of fierce opposition from local unions as a merger could threaten as many as 30,000 jobs over the long term.
Europe’s banking sector rose more than 1 percent, with Italian lenders Banco BPM and UBI Banca gaining. That sent the pan-European STOXX 600 index’s up 0.27 percent to a fresh five-month high.
“If this (deal) works out, people are going to be looking at ... if this could be an example of what needs to be done to create further stability and less reliance on the central bank,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA.
Also caught in the merger wave was German insurer Allianz, which Bloomberg reported was exploring combining its asset management business with DWS, mostly owned by Deutsche Bank. DWS shares jumped 9 percent to their highest since May.
European payments companies Worldline, Ingenico and Wirecard rose after U.S. fintech group Fidelity National Information Services agreed to buy Worldpay for about $35 billion. That deal adds to a bumper few months for acquisitions in the fast-growing sector which analysts say may be far from over.
London’s FTSE 100 rose the most among euro-peers with a near 1-percent gain at the start of a week in which parliament is expected to vote for a third time on Prime Minister’s Theresa May’s Brexit plan after ruling out a near-term no-deal exit.
Basic and resources sector jumped 1.7 percent, after Vale, the world’s top iron ore miner, announced further output cuts, raising worries about tightening supply of the steelmaking ingredient and triggering a rally in Chinese futures.
In the United States
Wall Street edged higher on Monday as declines in Boeing and Facebook held gains in check and investors eyed this week’s Federal Reserve meeting for affirmation of the central bank’s commitment to “patient” monetary policy.
Coming on the heels of the S&P 500’s best week since November, the benchmark index currently hovers about 3.4 percent below its all-time high reached in September. All three major U.S. indexes were in positive territory.
“People were so pessimistic around year-end, but the market has since had a tremendous rebound and now we’re in a wait-and-see phase,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Dow’s nominal advance was hindered by Boeing Co, which fell 2.0 percent as the company faced increasing scrutiny regarding safety of its 737 MAX planes following a fatal crash in Ethiopia on March 10. The world’s largest plane maker extended last week’s 10.3 percent decline and was the heaviest weight on the blue-chip index.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 31.79 points, or 0.12 percent, to 25,880.66, the S&P 500 gained 8.17 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,830.65 and the Nasdaq Composite added 21.45 points, or 0.28 percent, to 7,709.98.
Australian News
A stronger budget and higher-than-projected economic growth fuelled by soaring iron ore prices could pave the way for further tax cuts ahead of the next federal election, says a leading economic forecaster. Analysis by Deloitte Access Economics shows workers will lose on average 20 cents in every dollar to the taxman by 2021-22.
Read more
Australia’s poorest people need the government to match any increase to the minimum wage with a boost to the dole, the social services sector says. The Australia Council of Social Services says it’s not good enough to just lift the minimum wage, as the nation’s lowest earners are often reliant on both welfare and their scant earnings.
Read more
An open letter signed by more than 120 labour market experts has urged policy action to boost wages growth in Australia, amid perceptions that stagnant wages are threatening the economy and increasing inequality.
Read more
Finance shock: apartment glut adds further pain to property market. The apartment glut in Melbourne and Sydney is adding further pain to the market as buyers struggle to finance their off-the-plan purchases.
Read more
A new trial has been launched to cut power prices and make wind and solar energy more predictableby letting renewable generators forecast their own electricity production. Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) chief executive Darren Miller said with better forecasting it will ultimately lead to lower power costs by removing the unevenness in wind and solar generation.
Read more
Most industrial metals prices fell on Friday as uncertainty about trade talks and global growth outweighed Chinese plans to use government levers to underpin growth.
Read more
Volvo will use Volgren’s Malaga plant to fit out 900 buses it will supply to Transperthunder a 10-year $549 million contract. The Swedish bus manufacturer will supply bus chassis to Volgren, which will build the bus body and fit-out the vehicles.
Read more
Global News
A U.S. judge on Monday rejected Rio Tinto Plc’s bid to dismiss a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing the Anglo-Australian mining company of civil fraud in its handling of a failed investment in a Mozambique coal project. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan said the SEC may pursue some of its claims in the October 2017 lawsuit, which also charged former Chief Executive Officer Tom Albanese and former Chief Financial Officer Guy Elliott with fraud.
Read more
How big are digital payments? See this $43 billion merger. Two of the world's top payments companies are coming together in a $43 billion deal. FIS (FIS), a financial technology company that provides software for payment processing and other services mostly to banks, is buying Worldpay (WP), which makes technology that underpins credit card and other transactions for e-commerce merchants.
Read more
US smartphone chip titan Qualcomm said Friday it won a $31 million verdict in its multifront war with Apple over patented technology used in iPhones. A jury in a federal court in Southern California ordered that Apple pay Qualcomm for patent infringement for chips used on iPhone 7, 8 and X models.
Read more
Ethiopia and Indonesia crash parallels heap pressure on Boeing. Investigators probing the Boeing 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia have found similarities in vital flight angle data with an aeroplane that came down off Indonesia, a source said, hiking pressure on the world’s biggest planemaker.
Read more
Cannabis stocks were higher Monday, as investors reacted to the latest tie-ups in the sector and awaited the release of quarterly earnings from Tilray Inc. after the close. Tilray shares TLRY, -1.45% were up 0.8%, ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, which are expected to signal whether or not the company can actually sell pot.
Read more
Third time unlucky? Pound falls as parliament bans another vote on same Brexit deal. Sterling dropped below $1.32 on Monday after the speaker of Britain’s parliament said Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal could not be voted on again unless a different proposal was submitted.
Read more
UK to launch 'early warning' indicators for next economic shock
Read more
UK based start-up OneWeb has secured $1.25bn (£940m) in new funding enabling it to speed up its plans to launch a global high-speed broadband network. The firm said the money meant its 2021 launch was now "inevitable".
Read more
The future of Alitalia was plunged further into uncertainty on Monday after British budget airline easyJet pulled out of talks to rescue the Italian carrier two weeks before a deadline to save it.
Read more
Prada is feeling China's economic slowdown as it struggles to keep pace with its global rivals in the biggest market for luxury goods. The company's shares plunged almost 11% in Hong Kong on Monday after it reported disappointing earnings late Friday.
Read more
Saudi Arabia joins emerging market indexes, giving it access to billions of dollars. Saudi Arabia has officially been elevated to an emerging market, a milestone that should steer billions of dollars into the country's stock market as the kingdom seeks to diversify away from oil.
Read more
Global trade in counterfeit goods from knock-off watches to dodgy handbags is worth at least $700 billion a year, aided by consumers looking to join a "secret society" that enjoys the thrill of finding quality fakes. A new report by the OECD into counterfeit goods, released on Monday, found trade in fakes has increased over the past three years and now represents 3.3 per cent of world trade. Its previous study put the trade at 2.5 per cent.
Read more
MySpace, one of the first online social networks, has apologised after a server migration caused a huge loss of data. A message on its website says that "any photos, videos and audio files" uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available.
Read moreWait a second, MySpace is still a thing? Hands up anyone that has visited it in the last 5 years?
Stock News
Westpac's move to engineer three dividend payments in one financial year will "hopefully" spark similar moves from other big banks, says one leading fund manager, who described the tactic as a way to beat Labor's pledged changes to franking tax policy. Westpac recently announced it would bring forward its interim dividend payment date by nine days to June 24 giving shareholders a one-off third dividend within the current financial year following an interim dividend last July and a full year dividend paid in December.
Read more
ANZ looks to China to help understand its data. ANZ Banking Group is looking to its Chinese operations to help unlock “the power of its data” by applying techniques such as deep learning.
Read more
IOOF faces a class action over the beleaguered wealth manager's alleged failure to tell shareholders about APRA's concern over possible breaches of superannuation laws.
Read more
Pilbara Minerals has exercised an option to enter a joint venture to manufacture battery-making materials with steelmaker Posco by setting up a lithium processing facility in South Korea. The Australian miner said in a statement that it will have up to 30 per cent participation in the facility, which will have a capacity of up to 40,000 kilo tonnes per annum of lithium carbonate equivalent.
Read more
The global market for iron ore is facing more uncertainty and the prospect of tighter supply after a Brazilian court ordered the suspension of operations at another Vale mine on Friday. The news helped ensure that Australia's three biggest iron ore producers, Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue Metals Group, all climbed higher on the Australian market on Monday.
Read more
Woodside Petroleum has taken a stake in a Perth-based cyber security firm which specialises in protecting critical infrastructure. The oil and gas company said it taken a 10 per cent shareholding in Sapien Cyber’s technology, developed at Edith Cowan University and designed to protect industrial facilities from cyber attacks.
Read more
Aeris Resources welcomes restart of drilling at Torrens copper-gold anomaly in South Australia
Read more
Salt Lake Potash grows Lake Way SOP resource to 73 million tonnes. The resource upgrade reinforces the company’s current review process to consider a larger scale scenario at Lake Way.
Read more
BHP autonomous trucks collide at Jimblebar iron ore mine in Pilbara
Read more
Tlou Energy Ltd (LON:TLOU) shares could be worth much more than the current market value, that’s according to house broker Shore Capital. Reacting to the latest news from Tlou’s Lesedi coal bed methane project in Botswana, the broker gave its view on what the company’s assets are worth.
Read more
Carnegie Clean Energy director Grant Mooney agrees to back collapsed wave power developer to progress rescue plan. One of the directors of Carnegie Clean Energy has struck a deal to help fund its operations while administrators attempt to recapitalise its wave power business.
Read more
Goat milk formula maker Bubs is expanding its range of children's snacks, launching eight new products for kids aged one to five. Bubs shares were worth 73.5 cents before the start of trade on Monday, up 98 per cent since mid December.
Read more
Cold Rock franchisees say stores at the ice-cream chain are closing because high product costs and marketing charges are making it hard to stay afloat. Franchisees from Cold Rock were one of the main sources of confidential submissions to the parliamentary inquiry into franchising, according to the inquiry's report published last week. Franchisees say the company has "flown under the radar" until now.
Read more
Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers Ltd (ASX:KPT) has raised $1 million through a share purchase plan (SPP) with 483,250 shares issued at $2 each, a 14.9% discount to the last closing share price. The funds will be used for additional approval costs, pontoon enhancements, pre-approval value engineering studies and increased contingency.
Read more
Telstra and Optus are set to build out 180 new base stations under the fourth round of the government’s mobile blackspots program. Minister for regional services Senator Bridget McKenzie said that Telstra would build 131 base stations and Optus 49 in the round.
Read more
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