Good morning traders. Thanks @ttward, @Ravgnome & the aftermarket loungers. Good luck with your heart op @rick64.

ASX Market Report

The ASX 200 followed the US and European markets down for a second day after a sense of gloom and doom continued to hover over equity markets and fed into the risk-off tone. The ASX 200 was down 47.9 points or 0.73% to 6,392.1.

For the second day running, it was the Telco’s that were the only sector to finish in the green, rising 1.14% and far eclipsing what any other sector could muster. It was Telstra (TLS) that did the heavy lifting again, rising 6c or 1.68%. There also gains to the likes of Speedcast International (SDA) who jumped 1.07%, TPG Telecom (TPM) who were up 0.80%, and Spark New Zealand (SPK) rose 0.56%.

Horticultural company Costa Group (CGC) were far and away the worst performer on the benchmark index after issuing a profit warning, falling a whopping 27.61% to $3.75, and seeing a massive surge in volume traded. Agribusiness Elders (ELD) was also down fo the day, falling 5.5% to $5.83 and the second-worst performer on the index.

Shares in Rio Tinto’s & BHP slid on the back of falling commodities prices, with Rio down 3.33% and BHP losing 1.72%.

Shares in Apollo Tourism & Leisure (ATL) fell 32.8% after receiving a 20% downgrade to their earnings guidance.

Defence and space systems contractor Electro Optic Systems (EOS) jumped after it said it was on track to deliver EBIT of around $20 million in 2019, up 180% from 2018.

At 7am AEST, the Aussie dollar was buying .6914 USD, .5484 GBP, .6210 EUR, 75.78 JPY, and 1.061 NZD.

The ASX 200 futures were pointing towards a 12 point or 0.19% gain following a more stable overnight session.

Global Markets Report

U.S. markets halted their slide and recorded their first up day of the week, although it was hardly a spectacular one. The Dow was up 43.47 points or 0.17% to 25,169.88, the S&P 500 rose 5.84 points or 0.215 to 2,788.86, and the Nasdaq outperformed slightly to rise 20.41 points or 0.27% to 7,567.22 points.

European stocks fared a bit better as they regained some of their losses from the previous day. The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.42% after the DAX, FTSE 100 and CAC 40 all saw rises of around half of a percent.

In Asia equity markets were broadly softer following European and U.S. markets falling on Wednesday, although did hold up a bit better than the day before. The Shanghai Composite broke it’s four day winning streak after falling 0.31%, the Korean Kospi bucked the overall trend rising 0.77%, the Nikkei was down 0.29%, and the Hang Seng fell 0.44%.

The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. dollar against six major currencies, saw a slight rise of 0.02% to 98.1660

Oil prices fell after an industry report showed a smaller-than-expected decline in U.S. crude inventories. U.S. WTI crude futures were down 1.9% to $57.69 per barrel. Brent crude was down 2.9% to $67.42 per barrel.

The spot gold price was up 0.62% to 1,288.54 USD/oz.

Please include the STOCK CODE in your post out of respect for your fellow traders, or use the OT (off topic) tag for non-stock related content.

We’ve almost made it to the end of May. Hooray. Our reward is... oh Winter that’s right. Never mind the celebrations then, just some hot food.