THE Australian market looks set to open almost one per cent higher following strong performances on US and European markets in their last trading sessions. At 0700 AEST on Monday, the share price futures index was up 55 points, or 0.95 per cent, at 5,872.
In the US, the S&P 500 closed at a record high, as energy stocks bounced back along with oil prices and US jobs growth rebounded.
US non-farm payrolls surged by 211,000 jobs in April after a paltry gain of 79,000 in March, and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.4 per cent, near a 10-year low.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average were also higher European markets gained more than half a per cent — after earlier flinching on a plunge in oil prices — as investors looked ahead to Sunday’s final ballot in the French presidential election — that was won by centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron.
The markets stabilised when Saudi Arabia’s OPEC chief said there was a growing consensus among oil pumping countries that they needed to continue to “rebalance” the market.
Germany’s DAX and London’s FTSE100 closed up 0.4 per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively.
Locally, in major economic news on Monday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases March building approvals figures, the ANZ job advertisement series is due out, as is CoreLogic’s capital city house prices for the week just ended. In equities news, Westpac will post its first-half results, the last of the big four banks to do so.
Analysts forecast cash profit to increase by about three per cent to roughly $4 billion.
Meanwhile, investors will watch for any further developments after Fairfax Media on Sunday confirmed private equity company TPG Capital had made an unsolicited approach to buy its three key metro newspapers and online real estate arm Domain.
The Australian market on Friday closed lower for a fourth consecutive session on the back of sliding commodity prices with an iron ore slump weighing on the local currency.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index fell 39.8 points, or 0.68 per cent, to 5,836.6 points.
The broader All Ordinaries index lost 40.7 points, or 0.69 per cent, to 5,863.8 points..
Meanwhile, the Australian dollar has crept higher against its US counterpart with the US dollar index failing to get a boost from the stronger-than-expected jobs figures.
The local currency was trading at 74.13 US cents at 0700 AEST on Monday, from 73.86 on Friday.
CURRENCY SNAPSHOT AT 0700 AEST
One Australian dollar buys:
* 74.13 US cents, from 73.86 on Friday
* 83.74 Japanese yen, from 82.89 yen
* 67.26 euro cents, from 67.33 cents
* 57.09 British pence, from 57.08 pence
* 107.34 New Zealand cents, from 107.93 NZ cents
