Latest stock market news videos & Morning Bell

Good morning, well there’s lots to take in today.

The Aussie share market is expected to trim some of yesterday’s 1% gain and edge 0.8% lower if you go by the futures.

It comes as U.S. equities had a wild ride turning positive for the year with the S&P500 hitting its highest level since COVID-19 began before falling and evaporating those gains.

A big part of the rise and fall was the fact that Tesla shares throttled 16.2% higher before ending 3% lower.

What a wild ride?

On the back of speculative trading, markets stalwarts like Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet all closed at least 1.7% lower though erasing earlier gains.

The Dow ended flat, the S&P500 losing 0.9% and the Nasdaq fell 2.1% from its all-time high.

As for standout stocks, Pfizer and BioNTech were granted fast track FDA approval for their four COVID-19 vaccine candidates and that sent Pfizer shares over 4% higher and BioNTech up the most 11%.

After the market closed we saw Trump health officials come out saying drug makers will be able to start COVID-19 vaccine production by the end of August.

So expect a bounce this evening when Wall Street reopens.

On the commodity front the oil price fell 1% below that psychological point of US$40 that it’s been tracking at for some time now, it fell ahead of OPEC meeting later this week with output unfortunately likely to increase while demand of course is subdued.

Elsewhere the gold price got comfy at US$1,814 an ounce and the iron ore price remains in 12 month high neighborhood, while BHP in New York fell 0.6%.

What to watch today, three things.

Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC) production numbers are out for the quarter. NAB business confidence on the economic front is out for June, forecast to improve from May’s negative reading given payrolls are up and retail spending is recovering.

So keep an eye on stocks linked to the economic recovery like the big four banks as well as Suncorp (ASX:SUN) and Auswide Bank (ASX:ABA), as well as industrial property stocks like Goodman Group (ASX:GMG) and Centuria Industrial REIT (ASX:CIP).

New South Wales will cap the number of people allowed in pubs from today after an outbreak at the Crossroads Hotel, now it won’t affect clubs or Star City Casino (ASX:SGR) but keep an eye on Australia’s biggest owner of freehold pubs ALE Properties (ASX:LEP).

In the corporate side of things, Westpac (ASX:WBC) has named Michael Roland as its new Chief Financial Officer joining the group from KPMG.

Now three trading ideas, well firstly UBS reiterated Oil Search (ASX:OSH) as a buy with a $4.30 target awaiting project growth in PNG and Alaska.

Bell Potter increased its buy rating and price target of the software provider platform to $0.59 expecting a cracking FY22 on the back of an earnings per share lift, a continuation of flows into the platform and it’s UK business breaking even next year.

Thirdly, UBS overnight reiterated Qantas (ASX:QAN) as a buy with a $4.60 target expecting an improvement in numbers from September, but keep in mind flights in and out of Melbourne amount to 21% of Australian capacity and international flights are on hold now given this expect earnings to return in 2022.

I’m Jessica Amir with Bell Direct, happy trading and stay safe.