Overseas Market Report – Stocks End Higher; Book Fifth Straight Weekly Gain
U.S. stocks ended higher on Friday and the major indexes notched up their fifth consecutive weekly gain.
The U.S. crude oil benchmark pared early gains to end lower on Friday, but crude was still higher for the week.
U.S. consumer sentiment fell in March, according to the University of Michigan survey. The reading of 90.0 was down from a final February reading of 91.7.
At market close the Dow was up 0.7%, while the S&P 500 and NASDAQ were each 0.4% higher.
Shares of Starwood (HOT) rose over 5% on Friday after the firm said a sweetened offer from Chinese insurer Anbang was superior to the previously accepted offer from Marriott (MAR). Marriott now has a little over a week to decide if it will boost its bid.
Adobe Systems' (ADBE) cloud platform continued to gain momentum in the first quarter, as Creative Cloud user growth and major Marketing Cloud customer wins helped propel the firm's results above Morningstar's expectations. Management offered a rosy outlook for the next several years, as the firm expects customer value to continue to increase at an elevated pace. Shares were up 3.9% on the report.
For Australian ADRs listed on the NYSE, BHP Billiton added 13 cents (0.48%) to $27.42, ResMed gained 34 cents (0.61%) to $56.34, Telstra Corporation lost 30 cents (1.49%) to $19.88, Spark New Zealand added 15 cents (1.30%) to $11.68 and Westpac declined 31 cents (1.23%) to $24.89.
At 7:45 AM (AEDT), the 10-year Treasury note yield was 1.87% and the 5-year yield was 1.33%.
European markets were mostly higher.
The FTSE 100 was off 0.2%, while the French CAC 40 and Germany's DAX were up 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively.
Asian markets were mixed on Friday.
The Shanghai Composite rose 1.7%, while the Hang Seng was 0.8% higher and the Nikkei 225 was down 1.3%. India's Sensex finished 1.1% higher.
Australian Market Report- Local Markets Expected To Open Higher
Ahead of the local open, SPI futures were 29 points higher at 5,193.
Friday 18 March – close. Local stocks opened higher as overnight gains on Wall Street and strength in commodity markets lifted the market. After briefly trading above 5,200 points, the ASX index gave back part of early gains in late morning trade, but remained in positive territory with the major miners and banks leading the way. There were mixed results from the sectors; materials gained most significantly while health care posted the biggest losses. The Australian dollar was up against other major currencies.
The All Ordinaries rose 12.90 points to 5,239.30 while the S&P/ASX 200 added 14.90 points to 5,183.10.
In This Issue
Sydney Airport (SYD)
Sydney Airport announced that total passengers grew 10.0%, with international and domestic markets growing 12.7% and 8.5% respectively. The international 12-month rolling performance is 6.1%. Foreign inbound grew 14.1%, supported by demand from China (+19.6%), USA (+19.1%), Korea (+27.7%), Japan (+25.7%) and UK (+8.6%). Australian outbound also grew strongly, increasing 10.2% due to high demand on leisure routes and further seat capacity increases. Domestic passenger growth again grew strongly in February 2016 delivering an increase of 8.5%, to reach over 4.3m passengers year to date. SYD gained 15 cents to $6.50.
FlexiGroup (FXL)
FlexiGroup announced that it has completed its acquisition of Fisher & Paykel Finance from Fisher & Paykel Appliances. All conditions precedent to the acquisition has been completed including approvals of the transaction from the Reserve Bank of NZ and the NZ Overseas Investment Office. The Company also advised that it will shortly increase its FY16 Cash NPAT guidance to include the earnings contribution from Fisher & Paykel Finance for the remainder of FY16. Dividend guidance is also reaffirmed, with FY16 dividend expected within 50-60% of Cash NPAT. FXL rose 12 cents to $2.52.
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