daytrading april 28 pre-market

Morning traders. Thanks Trees.

Market wrap:

The share market is likely to open lower after a round of disappointing corporate earnings and increased tensions in Ukraine dragged Wall Street lower on Friday.

The June SPI 200 futures contract fell 23 points or 0.2% to 5507 on Saturday morning, more than reversing an eight-point gain on Thursday night during the first of two trading sessions in the US while share trade on the ASX was suspended for the Anzac Day long weekend.

The S&P 500 slumped 15 points or 0.83% on Friday as sentiment deteriorated heading into the weekend following a 0.19% or four-point gain on Thursday. The Dow lost 141 points or 0.85% as Visa's quarterly earnings missed analyst expectations. The Nasdaq tanked 72 points or 1.74% after shares in Amazon fell 8.88% as the retailer surprised the market by forecasting a loss this quarter.

"The great earnings surprises from some of the big tech stocks [earlier in the week] haven't quite been enough to bring down the wall of worry," Tom Stringfellow, president of Frost Investment Advisors in the US, told Bloomberg. "Russian troops are massing up at the Ukrainian border, which is enough to make people nervous about anybody with business activities in Europe. We’ve become sensitive to having too many days of gains, and eventually there has to be a move down."

Wall Street opened under a cloud as European stocks signalled alarm at events in Ukraine. The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell 0.78% as Germany's DAX lost 1.54%, France's CAC 0.79% and Britain's FTSE 0.25%.

Consumer discretionary stocks led the US retreat, falling 1.7% as results from Ford and Amazon dampened expectations for the rest of this earnings season. Shares in Ford skidded 3.31%. The sector declines came despite news of a nine-month high in a measure of consumer sentiment. The UMich/Reuters gauge rose to a final reading of 84.1 this month from 80 in March.

Traders once again dumped the bull market's biggest winners, with Facebook and Nextflix falling more than 5%, the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index 2.4% and the Russell 2000 index of small caps 1.86%. The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index and Dow Jones Transportation Index, which both reached record levels last week, lost 1.54% and 1.61%, respectively. The defensive utilities sector rallied 1.1%.

BHP and Rio Tinto eased following a mixed session in US trade on Thursday. BHP fell 0.35% on Friday, extending a 0.14% decline on Thursday night. Rio lost 0.05% after rising 0.77% on Thursday. Spot iron ore for import to China lost $2.20 or 1.9% on Friday, falling to US$111 a dry tonne.

Gold stocks benefitted from haven buying in the US after the price the metal rallied for a third night. The NYSE Gold Bugs Index rallied 2.43% as gold for June delivery rose $10.20 or 0.8% to settle at US$1,300.80 an ounce.

Oil wrapped up its worst week in more than a month with a retreat towards US$100 a barrel following news of record US inventories. West Texas Intermediate crude oil for June delivery settled $1.34 or 1.3% lower at US$100.60 a barrel for a loss for the week of 2.7%.

Nickel and copper resisted downward pressure on base metals during a 'risk-off' session in Europe. In London, copper edged up 0.2%, nickel 0.5% and lead 0.3%. Aluminium fell 1.3%, tin 0.4% and zinc 0.7%. US copper for May delivery was flat at US$3.12 a pound.

TRADING THEMES THIS WEEK

US EARNINGS: The Q1 company reporting season will continue to drive sentiment on Wall Street, with reports due this week from Dow components Chevron, Merck and ExxonMobil, plus Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, Time Warner and MasterCard. With nearly half the season over, forward guidance has been slightly more downbeat than average.

US ECONOMY BOUNCES BACK: A big week of US economic data is expected to show the economy is continuing to mend following a sharp downturn during a tough winter. The highlights are the quarterly GDP report and a Federal Reserve rate statement on Wednesday and the monthly jobs update on Friday. Full list of highlights: consumer confidence index (tomorrow night); GDP, Chicago PMI, Federal Funds Rate and FOMC statement (Wed); personal income, consumer spending, ISM manufacturing PMI, weekly jobless claims (Thu); and non-farm payrolls and unemployment rate (Fri).

CHINA UPDATE: Thursday brings the official Chinese government manufacturing report, which has remained more resilient than HSBC's private rival version. Economists expect the measure to remain in positive territory and show a mild improvement in activity, rising to 50.5 from 50.3.

ECONOMIC NEWS: A light week for domestic reports includes: private-sector credit (Wed); AIG Manufacturing Index, quarterly import prices (Thu); and the producer price index and home sales (Fri).

Good luck to all.