Week packed with local earnings reports
THE Australian sharemarket is expected to open lower on Monday with the week dominated by a flurry of corporate results from some of the nation’s largest companies such as Woolworths, BHP, Rio Tinto and Qantas.
The economic agenda will be dominated by the release of RBA minutes from its February board meeting.
It comes as Wall Street stocks finished mostly lower Friday to conclude a mixed week pressured by worries over more interest rate hikes.
“It looks like global growth will definitely take a harder hit as monetary policy gets even more restrictive over the next few months,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at currency firm Oanda.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 0.4 per cent at 33,826.69. The broadbased S&P 500 declined 0.3 per cent to 4079.09, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.6 per cent to 11,787.27.
US stocks have been volatile as investors weigh hopes of a “soft landing” from a period of elevated inflation against worries that central bank actions could prompt a serious recession. According to the futures market the Australian sharemarket is tipped to open as much as 83 points weaker to 7273 points on Monday, despite gains on Wall Street, however the mood of local investors could improve overnight and before the market opens on Monday.
The week will feature earnings reports from some of the largest companies on the ASX led by BHP and Coles on Tuesday, Woolworths, Rio Tinto and Domino’s on Wednesday and Qantas on Thursday.
For the BHP result analysts will be looking for the miner’s ability to rein in unit costs in the next half.