IG Markets Morning Prices

Good morning,

On Wall St overnight, stocks closed with modest gains after upbeat earnings from companies including Halliburton outweighed weaker homebuilding data. However, after hours reports from IBM and Texas Instruments missed revenue expectations, putting both stocks under pressure.

The tech heavy HASDAQ was the session's best performer, rising 0.9% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both added 0.6%.

Despite the positive US leads, the ASX 200 is called to open 0.4% weaker this morning at 4343 after the afterhours results from IBM and Texas Instruments weighed on US futures.

It's a very mixed set of leads today but ultimately, it looks like the afterhours action in the US is doing to dictate market open. We might see some support for our consumer discretionary and energy names after both sectors added 1% and 0.6% respectively in US trade. Crude Oil futures managed to gain 0.6% since 4.30pm yesterday.

We have very conflicting leads for materials stocks too. The sector was flat in US trade despite weaker base metal prices on the London Metals Exchange. However, in normal London trade, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton were 1.5% and 0.3% firmer respectively. BHP Billiton's ADR is calling the local stock to open 0.7% higher, but that closed at 4pm NY time, before markets sold off on the IBM result. Our best guess would be for a flat to slightly firmer open for BHP Billiton.

Elsewhere, financials will probably be relatively flat whilst we might see some buying support for the industrial sector.

In summary, it looks like the local market will open the session weaker following the afterhours selloff on Wall St. The Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes at 11.30am will be closely watched, as will RBA Governor Steven's speech at 1.05pm.

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