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Good morning this Monday the 17th of August.

I’m Paulina Peters a market analyst with Bell Direct, covering for Jess today.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 looks set to start the week in the red.

The futures are suggesting a 0.95% drop at the open.

This follows a reasonably underwhelming finish to the week on Wall Street, with stocks closing flat on Friday.

The Dow Jones rose 0.1%, the S&P 500 closed flat, and the tech heavy Nasdaq fell 0.2%.

We saw the Gold price fall 1% to US$1,949.80 an ounce on Friday night.

This led to the precious metal having its worst week in almost six months.

Looking at commodities, the Oil price slipped after worries that demand would recover more slowly than expected from COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

The Brent crude fell 10 cents to US$44.86 per barrel.

And, the iron ore price rose, now sitting at US$120.

What to watch today and this week, well it’s another busy reporting season week.

The companies reporting today include, WAAAX stock Altium (ASX:ALU), Bendigo & Adelaide Bank (ASX:BEN) and oil and gas production company Beach Energy (ASX:BPT).

Consumer goods retailer, JB Hi-Fi (ASX:JBH), its share price will be on watch today when it releases its full year results.

Goldman Sachs analysts expect the retailer to report sales of $8,026.6 million.

This is compared to its guidance of $7,860 million.

Other companies reporting this week, include BHP (ASX:BHP), Coles (ASX:COL) and Westpac (ASX:WBC) tomorrow.

On Wednesday, look out for the second biggest company on the ASX, CSL who reports, and on Thursday, Wesfarmers (ASX:WES) reports.

With the oil price falling, keep an eye on energy producers like Santos (ASX:STO) and Woodside Petroleum (ASX:WPL).

Now to finish on two trading ideas, National Australia Bank (ASX:NAB).

On Friday, NAB provided a limited third quarter 20 trading update.

Bell Potter believes NAB has the foundations in place to cope with COVID-19.

They forecast a final FY20 dividend of 20¢ and FY21 interim and final dividends of 40¢ each.

Bell Potter’s price target remains at $19.90 price target and their Buy rating also remains unchanged.

Finally, investment management company, Praemium (ASX:PPS).

Bell Potter has increased its price target by 5% to 62 cents and maintains its Buy rating on the stock.

Praemium reported last Friday.

It’s FY20 EBITDA of $14.2m exceeded Bell Potter’s $13.8m estimate.

Bell Potter believes PPS has delivered a good result in a difficult environment.

Specifically, it is benefitting from increased investment in its Australian business.

The company has gained scale and has a material merger with Powerwrap (ASX:PWL) if it is successful with its bid.

I’m Paulina Peters with Bell Direct, happy Trading.