Originally published by Rivkin Securities
US stocks had another volatile session overnight with the Dow Jones Industrial Average trading down almost 400 points just before midday before recovering to close up 5 points. It was a similar story for both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) had a rough day, falling 5.5%, after an extremely strange earnings call where CEO Elon Musk berated analysts for asking boring questions and then abruptly cancelled the queue of questioners. TSLA’s finances are looking shaky and it appears the CEO was trying to deflect questions about the company’s financial position.
The ASX has had a strong run recently with the S&P/ASX 200 climbing almost 2.5% in the last week. Blue chip stocks have had somewhat of a rally after a very weak performance for the year-to-date.
Australia’s trade balance came out yesterday and was much better than expected. The forecast was for a trade surplus of $0.68bn but the figures came out showing a surplus of $1.53bn and the prior month was upwardly revised from $0.83bn to $1.35bn. This continues Australia’s strong run of surpluses with only two deficits posted in the last 15 months. The strong numbers have come largely on the back of an improvement in iron ore and coal exports.
Gold prices rallied overnight while US bond yields fell slightly. Oil also rallied despite the large increase in inventories reported this week. Today the RBA’s monetary policy statement will be released. This will give insight into the bank’s thoughts on the economy and inflation.
Data Releases:
- Australia RBA Monetary Policy Statement 11:30am AEST
- US Employment Data 10:30pm AEST