Latest stock market news videos & Morning Bell

Good morning, well the Australian share market is currently sitting with a weekly gain of 2.6% right through to Thursday morning before trade.

But profits are expected to be clipped off the table today as the futures are suggesting a drop of 0.9% and it comes as overnight markets were mixed.

The oil price lost 2% snapping its 5 day winning streak and it settled at $24 a barrel, however new data suggests the oil price could now be supported, given oil production is falling on a weekly basis according to EIA recent figures.

Now elsewhere, the gold price has lost 1% it’s now at $1,688 an ounce as further COVID-19 lockdowns ease.

Now looking at the stocks, Tech names rallied up the most overnight Amazon up 1.45% followed by Apple and Netflix shares charmed up 2.3%.

While for the sectors, the drop in the oil price saw Energy stocks weigh on the market. The S&P500 lost 0.7% while the Nasdaq of course was filled higher and charged up 0.5%.

Now what to watch today locally, well Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) is set to hold its AGM today virtually. The explosives company Orica (ASX:ORI) is set to report quarterly numbers and Macquarie (ASX:MQG) is expected to give an update to the market.

Now in terms of a trading idea, Altium (ASX:ALU) which is a circuit board company working with the likes of Microsoft, they had their price target lifted by a Bell Potter to $37.50.

That implies 6.2% share price growth for Altium in a year.

Now based on Altium’s operations, Bell Potter reckons its earnings could actually lift up to at 41% in a year.

Now what else to watch, well on the economic front yesterday we learnt Australia’s retail sales soared 8.5% in March as stockpiling pushed food sales and household appliances sales higher.

While online retail sales soared at 7.1%, now these trends have been supporting the likes of Coles (ASX:COL), Woolworths (ASX:WOW), Breville (ASX:BRG) and JB Hi-Fi (ASX:JBH).

Now today, keep an eye out for Australia’s March export data as well, which is out at 11:30am.

We’ll learn how much we imported as well and the difference between exports and imports is called the balance of trade, now that will also be out the market is looking for a balance of trade surplus of $6.8 billion, as iron ore exports are ramping up and we know this is so because Fortescue metals (ASX:FMG) recently told us this in their results.

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