Day Trading Pre-market Open - 29 Mar 2019, page-2 - HotCopper | ASX Share Prices, Stock Market & Share Trading Forum

Originally posted by Bugsam ↑

Good morning traders, happy Friday. Thanks @ttward, @Ravgnome & the aftermarket loungers. US markets were firmer this morning, with the Dow up 91.87 points at close, or 0.36%.

ASX Market Report

Australian shares have bounced back with an afternoon rally that lifted every sector.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed up 40.1 points, or 0.65 per cent, to 6,176.1 points at 1615 AEDT on Thursday, while the broader All Ordinaries was up 38.9 points, or 0.63 per cent, at 6,256.5.

"It's certainly a big pick-up, not dissimilar to what we saw yesterday," said CommSec market analyst James Tao. Mr Tao said there was no obvious single catalyst for the rally, although apparent progress on US-China trade talks and options expiring because it was the last Thursday of the month could have been behind it. Everything was up, led by consumer discretionary stocks, which gained 1.34 per cent.

Wesfarmers gained 2.59 per cent to $34.92, Flight Centre gained 3.19 per cent to $41.38 and G8 Education gained 3.45 per cent to $3.

The materials sector also did well, collectively gained 1.06 per cent, with market heavyweight BHP up 0.9 per cent to $38.24, South32 up 1.63 per cent to $3.74 and Rio Tinto up 1.24 per cent to $96.41.

The big four banks were more subdued, with Westpac flat and the others up between 0.10 and 0.31 per cent.

Pilbara Minerals was the biggest gainer among the ASX200, up 15 per cent to 80.5 cents after the lithium and tantalum producer said it would begin commercial production at its Pilgangoora mine in Western Australia's Pilbara region.

Intellectual property firm IPH got some good news when the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission said it wouldn't block the firm's potential hostile takeover of smaller rival Xenith IP Group, which is trying to merge with QANTM. IPH shares were up 2.89 per cent to $7.13 and Xenith was up 5.52 per cent to $1.91, while QANTM shares dipped 3.55 per cent to $1.36.

Air New Zealand was up 3.48 per cent to $2.38 after it announced cost cuts, a focus on profitable routes and the delayed delivery of new aircraft.

The Aussie dollar is buying 71.00 US cents, from 71.02 US cents on Wednesday, largely unmoved by data showing job vacancies rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4 per cent over the three months to February.

The rate of growth is far lower than that of a year ago, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

ON THE ASX:
* The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 40.1 points, or 0.65 per cent, to 6,176.1 points at 1630 AEDT on Thursday.
* The All Ordinaries was up 38.9 points, or 0.63 per cent, to 6,256.5.
* At 1630 AEDT, the SPI200 futures index was up 55 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 6,168.

CURRENCY SNAPSHOT AT 1630 AEDT:
One Australian dollar buys:
* 71.00 US cents, from 70.85 US on Wednesday
* 78.19 Japanese yen, from 78.29
* 63.07 euro cents, from 63.00
* 53.78 British pence, from 53.67
* 104.07 NZ cents, from 104.24

In Asia

Global bond yields continued to spiral lower in Asia on Thursday as recession fears fed expectations of more policy easing by major central banks, though some share markets in the region did manage to steady after an early sell off.

A Reuters report that the United States and China had made progress in all areas in trade talks seemed to bolster sentiment a little, though sticking points still remained and there was no definite timetable for a deal.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan recouped early losses to be almost flat, as did Shanghai blue chips.

Japan’s Nikkei still fell 1.4 percent.

The RBNZ explicitly cited all the easing moves by other central banks as a reason for its turnaround since they had put unwanted upward pressure on the local dollar.

That is one reason markets are wagering the Reserve Bank of Australia will also be forced to cut rates, simply to stop its currency from appreciating. Policy easing then becomes a self-fulfilling cycle across the world.

“The continued dovish shift by G7 central banks, ongoing support by the Chinese authorities, and the move by the RBNZ will keep pressure on the RBA to also move in the same direction, however reluctantly,” said Su-Lin Ong, head of Australian and New Zealand strategy at RBC Capital Markets. “It is, essentially, a global policy cycle.”

The RBNZ’s action had the desired effect on its currency, which was pinned at $0.6816 after diving 1.6 percent overnight. The Aussie was on the defensive at $0.7090.

In Europe

European shares pared early gains to finish lower on Thursday as optimism around some progress in U.S.-China trade talks were outweighed by losses in banks amid a gloomy outlook for global economic growth and uncertainties around Brexit.

The pan-region STOXX 600 index slipped 0.1 percent, with Frankfurt’s trade-sensitive index DAX giving up most gains to close 0.08 percent lower, while Madrid and Milan slipped more than half a percent each.

The 0.6 percent rise in London’s FTSE 100 was the most among regional indices, spurred by a weaker pound after Wednesday’s indicative vote on Brexit ended in a deadlock.

Efforts to persuade lawmakers to back British Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal continue with a parliamentary debate scheduled for Friday amid reports that it will not be a so-called ‘Meaningful Vote’, making the rounds.

“The FTSE is ahead purely because the pound is having a terrible day. But subsequently, the euro’s gains against the pound are preventing the DAX and the rest of the euro zone indices from properly joining in with the rally seen in the UK,” said Connor Campbell, an analyst at Spreadex.

The factors at play in the market on the day were currency index entanglements, a bit of U.S.-China trade hopes and some bad data from the U.S., Campbell said.
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In the United States

U.S. stocks edged higher on Thursday, helped by optimism over progress in U.S.-China trade talks, but concerns about an economic slowdown after a cut in fourth-quarter GDP growth limited the day’s advance.

The domestic economy slowed more than initially thought in the fourth quarter, keeping growth in 2018 below the 3 percent annual target, and corporate profits failed to rise for the first time in more than two years, data showed. Worries about economic growth hit markets last week after the Federal Reserve abandoned projections for any interest rate hikes this year and the U.S. Treasury yield curve inverted for the first time since 2007.

The benchmark 10-year yields rose off their 15-month lows on Thursday but the yield curve prolonged its inversion. An inverted yield could indicate that a recession is likely in one to two years.

While investors cheered the Fed’s move, they are more worried now about a weakening earnings and economic outlook, said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Hugh Johnson Advisors LLC in Albany, New York. “All of a sudden we’ve started to examine whether this is the end of the cycle. My answer is, it’s not the end of the cycle - for the stock market, the economy - but there’s not much left,” he said.

U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday that China had made proposals in talks with the United States on a range of issues that go further than it has before, including on forced technology transfer. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Washington could lift some tariffs on Beijing, while leaving others in place as part of an enforcement mechanism on the deal. Senior U.S. officials arrived in Beijing on Thursday for a fresh round of trade talks, which will be followed by a round in Washington next week. Trade sensitive industrial stocks rose 0.6 percent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 81.4 points, or 0.32 percent, to 25,706.99, the S&P 500 gained 8.45 points, or 0.30 percent, to 2,813.82 and the Nasdaq Composite added 22.27 points, or 0.29 percent, to 7,665.64.
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Australian News

PM Scott Morrison’s Coalition Government set to deliver first Budget surplus since John Howard era
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If you felt a bit poorer at the end of last year, you're not alone — Australian households dropped a lazy quarter of a trillion dollars in wealth in the three months leading up to New Year's Day. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data, household wealth fell $257.6 billion in the fourth quarter as the housing and equity markets tanked.
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Australia's richest and poorest postcodes revealed in ATO's 2016-17 tax statistics.Australia's richest live near Sydney's northern beaches and earn more than 10 times the income of the nation's poorest, who live in regional NSW, ATO statistics show.
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The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) has warned the major banks that it is not prepared to sit around and wait while inside moves to curb excessive bonuses take place, and said it is prepared to step in sooner rather than later to make things happen. Wayne Byres, the chair of APRA, told a summit on wealth and banking that the major lenders were being far too slow to enact any sort of policy to control top-level executive pay, and that time was running out for them to arrange it themselves without mandating any sort of intervention.
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ASIC expects more referrals to prosecutors for wealth industry wrongdoing
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A new government report warns China's restrictions on coal imports is the number one risk for Australian coal this year and could lead to a significant price slump. Since February, China has been placing increasingly onerous import restrictions on Australian thermal coal.
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Aluminium touched a one-week high overnight as inventories fell and prices shrugged off another step towards a full restart of Norsk Hydro's Brazil alumina operations.
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Iron ore prices are set to stay above $US80 a tonne this year because of shortages caused by the mine disaster in Brazil in January, according to global investment bank UBS.
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A 2.3 percent jump in global energy demand last year outstripped the expansion of renewables and helped drive record-high greenhouse gas emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Tuesday. Fossil fuels satisfied nearly 70 percent of that growth for the second year running, with natural gas accounting for 45 percent of the rise in energy consumption, according to the Agency's Global Energy & CO2 Status Report.
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WA cashes in on lithium boom as work begins on world's largest lithium refinery. What is expected to be the world's largest lithium refinery has reached a major milestone, with construction starting on the $1 billion project south of Perth.
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Global News

The US trade deficit dropped nearly 15 percent in January compared to December, largely due to declining imports from China, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Economists say the decline could help support growth in the first three months of the year, which would be a welcome development amid signs the world's largest economy has peaked.
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The United States and China open the latest round of their trade talks Thursday as the economic superpowers edge towards a deal to resolve a months-long spat that has rattled the global economy.
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China has made proposals in talks with the United States on a range of issues that go further than it has before, including on forced technology transfer, as the two sides work to overcome obstacles to a deal to end their protracted trade war, U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday.
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Shares of yoga-pants specialists Lululemon Athletica Inc rose 15 percent on Thursday, with several Wall Street analysts raising their price targets for the company after a blockbuster fourth quarter.
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The wealthy Sackler family is facing new charges it fraudulently transferred money from Purdue Pharma, the firm it owns that makes opioid painkillers. In a lawsuit, New York's Attorney General said she will recover "billions of dollars" that were "fraudulently conveyed" from the firm to the dynasty.
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A jury has awarded $US81 million ($114 million) to a man who said his use of weed killer Roundup caused his cancer, in the latest legal setback for pharmaceutical company Bayer AG, which is facing thousands of similar lawsuits.
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European lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday for an EU-wide ban on single-use plastic products such as the straws, cutlery and cotton buds that are clogging the world's oceans. The text had already been approved in negotiations with member states and EU officials and it will now be rapidly approved into law. The ban comes into effect from 2021.
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The European Parliament on Monday approved a plan to slash carbon dioxide emissions from new cars in Europe in an effort to jump start cleaner vehicles to fight climate change. The law, which was previously negotiated by EU member states, fixes a 37.5 percent carbon dioxide reduction target for 2030 compared with 2021.
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The UK Parliament has failed to endorse an alternative plan on Brexit after Prime Minister Theresa May offered to stand down from the top job if her deal was delivered.Eight separate alternatives on the UK's withdrawal from the European Union were rejected by MPs in the House of Commons.
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'No way to run a country': Business frustration with Brexit chaos boils over. Business leaders are voicing intense frustration with politicians who have plunged the United Kingdom deeper into uncertainty over Brexit. "No one would run a business like this -— and it is no way to run a country," Adam Marshall, head of the British Chambers of Commerce, said on Thursday.
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A second former Barclays banker has been convicted of conspiring to manipulate global Euribor interest rates, taking to nine the number of people found guilty in six rate-rigging trials.
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Daimler has teamed up with Geely to transform its Smart brand into an electric carmaker focused on China's vast market. Under the agreement announced Thursday, the next generation of Smart cars will be assembled at a plant in China with sales starting in 2022.
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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has shifted tack and talked up China’s economy, saying recent growth had been higher than expected which showed government tax cuts were working. In a shift in tone from his gloomier speech to National People’s Congress last month, Mr Li told an international business audience at the Boao Forum for Asia there had been rapid growth in March in imports and exports and freight volumes.
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Stock News

Elementos Ltd (ASX:ELT) will outline its multi-project tin production and exploration strategy to investors during next month’s Proactive CEO Sessions. Executive director Chris Dunks will explain how the company is implementing a low-risk growth strategy, aiming to meet some of the predicted global shortfall in tin supply.
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Rare earths miner Lynas Corp has derided Wesfarmers as arrogant and “Australian-centric” after taking less than a day to reject the conglomerate’s $1.5 billion takeover proposal. “For a long period of time, I worked at Telstra; I understand the arrogance of large companies,” a defiant Lynas chief executive Amanda Lacaze told The West Australian yesterday.
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Helios Energy confirms thick presence of Ojinga Formation at oil project in Texas
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Mining service provider Macmahon Holdings has won a $170 million contract to develop the new Boston Shaker underground gold mine at Tropicana in the northern Goldfields. The Tropicana project, a joint venture between South African giant AngloGold Ashanti (70 per cent) and ASX-listed Independence Group (30 per cent), is already Macmahon’s biggest mining contract in Australia.
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AusCann Group Holdings Ltd’s (ASX:AC8) interim CEO and director Paul MacLeman has purchased 30,268 shares priced at 33 cents each via on-market trades. MacLeman is an experienced pharmaceutical executive and was appointed to the company’s board in September 2018.
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Morning Bugsam - yes, I think I will go with that breakfast this morning - feel like something different. Not in a particularly good mood so that might help!!!

My notes:

https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/37922267/single