Afternoon Report Friday 3 July 2015
• Weaker leads from overseas saw the ASX 200 start the day weaker. From there, it fell to being 108 points down after the Retail Sales for June came in weaker than expected at 0.3% (0.5% was consensus). A slightly better afternoon saw the market finish the day down 61 points (1.1%) to 5,538. For the week the index finished down 7 points.• With weaker retail sales for June, the A$ sharply drop from US76.48c to US75.73c, before recovering slightly to be US75.87c at 4.00pm, with traders anticipating the Reserve Bank to possibly pull the trigger on another rate cut. The Reserve Bank is due to announce their decision on any change in rates next Tuesday 7th June 2015, at 2pm.• Mergers and Acquisitions activity continue in Australia, this time G8 Education (GEM) offering a scrip bid of 1 GEM for every 4.61 Affinity (AFJ) shares. AFJ ended 30% higher at $0.70.• Note, the US is closed tonight and next Monday as they celebrate Independence Day. Please watch out for the Weekend Report.
Show more...
