IG Markets Morning Prices

Good morning,

On Wall St overnight, stocks surged the most since May as manufacturing data in both the US and China bolstered optimism as to the state of the US economy. The market had been looking for the ISM manufacturing index to fall to 52.5; instead it came in at 56.3. However, it wasn't all rosy with the private sector jobs reports showing companies unexpectedly cut 10,000 jobs last month; the market was expecting a gain of 15,000. Nonetheless, the market chose to focus on the positives overnight.

The broad based S&P 500 and NASDAQ indexes were the top performers, both adding 3% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.5%.

Domestically, the ASX 200 is called to open 1.7% higher following the strong overnight leads. However, given yesterday's strong outperformance, we're probably likely to relative underperformance today.

We're likely to see strong gains across the board today, with the industrial, financial, energy, consumer discretionary and materials sectors all up more than 3% in US trade. Industrials and financials were the two best performers.

We should also see strong buying support for the materials space, with positive leads coming in from the UK as well. On the London Metals Exchange, base metals were all up between 0.5% and 1.8% while in normal equities trade, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton jumped 6.1% and 3.9% respectively. BHP Billiton's ADR is calling the locally listed entity 1.6% firmer at $38.50 on the open.

A 2% jump in Crude Oil futures to US$73.95 should further help gains in the energy space.

In summary, it's likely to be a very bullish day as investors and traders look to add more cyclical risk assets to their portfolios. In economic news, the trade balance is due for release at 11.30am, but we're not expecting it to have too much of impact on trade.