Latest stock market news videos & Morning Bell

Do you remember the man on TV who said “but wait there’s more” and he was giving away a set of steak knives?

Or now it should be “but wait there’s more better than expected economic news and stimulus”.

U.S. Retail Sales skyrocketed 17.5%, a whopping 10% more than expected in May.

Plus U.S. President Donald Trump is tipped to be drafting up a $1 trillion infrastructure plan for roads, rail and 5G, all of which will create new jobs in the U.S. as well.

But wait there’s more good news, in Europe a drug called dexamethasone has been discovered to drastically reduce the death rate of gravely ill COVID-19 patients.

Now this trifecta of news saw U.S. stocks charge as well as European stocks.

Now the Dow rose 2%, the S&P500 up 1.9% and the Nasdaq up 1.8%.

In Europe the German market rising 3.4%, London’s FTSE up 2.9%.

Also helping was the oil price lift of 3%, the gold price lifted 0.5% to $1,735 while the iron ore price actually fell 0.5%.

So today the futures are suggesting a 0.5% gain at the open for the Aussie share market following yesterday’s 3.9% rise to 5,942 points, now that was the best day that we had in ten weeks.

So what to watch today, well on the economic front New Home Sales are out for May, tipped to be negative but not as dire as April’s 1.1% drop.

On the corporate side BHP (ASX:BHP) has poached David Lamont as its new Chief Financial Officer.

David is currently the CFO of CSL, the biggest company on the ASX, now this might surprise you that a health executive is going to a mining giant, the third biggest company in Australia.

But David is not new to mining, he previously worked at BHP for six years.

Now he’ll take the head financial seat at BHP in December.

Now at the same time CSL (ASX:CSL) today announced that David has resigned as its CFO and will leave CSL on the 30th of October.

Now CSL is searching for replacements, so if you know anyone let CSL know.

Now some local trading ideas, well Macquarie (ASX:MQG) has been transcending realms with its strong ‘cash and grow’ position.

The bank was reiterated as a buy by Bell Potter and it’s a top stock pick for Bell Potter with a price target of $135, implying 19% share price growth.

Now a lot of brokers do back (ASX:MQG) given 63% of its profit comes from annuity style activity.

Now secondly, AMA (ASX:AMA) was reiterated as a UBS buy given the increased traffic numbers on Australian roads.

And thirdly, following Viva Energy’s (ASX:VEA) 16% gain yesterday on the back of starting that $618 million share buyback, returning money to shareholders, UBS has reiterated Viva Energy as a buy increasing its price target to $2.30.

I’m Jessica Amir from Bell Direct, happy trading.