Italy to ease their coronavirus lockdown on May 4th: ASX poised to open higher

Italy to ease their coronavirus lockdown on May 4th: ASX poised to open higher

 

Following strong leads from US markets, the Australian share market looks set to open higher this morning. On Friday President Donald Trump injected $761 billion into small businesses and hospitals, lifting shares on Wall Street. US coronavirus cases rose 3.3 per cent, below the one-week average. Italy will ease its lockdown on May 4 after reporting the fewest deaths since mid-March. Fatalities in the UK are the lowest in more than three weeks. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will return to work today after recovering from coronavirus, according to Downing Street. Meanwhile Singapore — which has one of Asia’s smallest populations — is emerging with the region’s biggest number of coronavirus cases after the world’s two most populous countries.

Markets

Wall Street closed higher on Friday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.11 per cent to close at 23,775, the S&P 500 added 1.4 per cent to close at 2837 and the NASDAQ gained 1.7 per cent to 8635.

European markets closed lower on Friday: London’s FTSE fell 1.3 per cent, Paris lost 1.3 per cent and Frankfurt closed 1.7 per cent lower.

Asian markets closed lower on Friday: Tokyo’s Nikkei fell 0.9 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.6 per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite dropped 1.1 per cent.

Taking all of this into equation, the SPI futures are pointing to 1.6 per cent gain.

On Friday, the Australian share market closed 26 points (0.5 per cent) higher at 5243

Local economic news 

CommSec releases its quarterly State of the States report. The ranking of economic performance pre-dates the virus crisis.
On Tuesday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) releases a number of annual publications covering migration, taxation and government finance.
Roy Morgan and ANZ will also release the weekly reading of consumer sentiment on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the ABS releases the main measure of inflation in Australia: the Consumer Price Index. Prices may have lifted 0.2 per cent in the quarter and 2 per cent on the year.
On Thursday the Reserve Bank releases the Financial Aggregates publication. TAPRA releases banking data on the same day.
And the ABS releases the second of the inflation indicators on Thursday: International Trade Price indexes. The data covers measures of export and import prices.
On Friday CoreLogic issues the Home Value Index (home prices) for April. This is one of the timelier indicators of the impact of the COVID-19 restriction measures on the economy – more specifically the housing market.

Company news

The securities of National Australia Bank (ASX:NAB) will be placed in trading halt at the request of NAB, pending it releasing an announcement. Unless ASX decides otherwise, the securities will remain in trading halt until the earlier of the commencement of normal trading on Wednesday, 29 April 2020 or when the announcement is released to the market. Shares in National Australia Bank (ASX:NAB) closed
0.3 per cent higher at $15.76 on Friday.

Currencies

One Australian Dollar at 8:05 AM was buying 63.89 US cents, 51.69 Pence Sterling, 68.68 Yen and 59.07 Euro cents.

Commodities

Iron Ore has lost 0.1 per cent to US$84.35
Iron Ore futures suggest a 0.4 per cent fall..
Gold has dropped $9.80 to US$1736 an ounce.
Silver was down $0.08 cents to US$15.45 an ounce.
Oil has gained $0.44 to US$16.94 a barrel.
 
Copyright 2020 – Finance News Network


Source: Finance News Network

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