Latest stock market news videos & Morning Bell
Morning Bell 19 February
Starting in the US this morning, where Wall St saw a positive day lead by a rally in the technology sector. Megacap Nvidia lead the way with a 2% gain, after Meta announced that they would be expanding their deal to use millions of Nvidia AI chips in their data centre buildout. At the close of the day’s trade, the S&P500 advanced 0.6%, the Dow Jones added 0.3%, while the tech heavy Nasdaq saw the biggest gains with a 0.8% jump.
What to watch today:
- Locally today, the ASX is expected to follow Wall St and add to its winning streak of late, with the SPI futures pointing to a 0.5% climb at the open of trade.
- As for reporting season, it’s a busy day today with a stack of notable companies releasing results. Australia’s largest Telco Telstra (ASX:TLS) this morning announced a 9% increase in net profit to $1.1 billion, as its revenue remained flat however expenditure had declined. It will pay an interim dividend of 10.5 cents per share, up from 9.5 cents last year.
- Although not released at time of recording, keep an eye on a number of big results to come out throughout this morning, including Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO), Wesfarmers (ASX:WES), Goodman Group (ASX:GMG) Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC), Downer (ASX:DOW) , among many more.
- So far this reporting season, we’ve seen 83 companies release their results, with 31 beating expectations, 32 in line with expectations and 20 missing expectations.
- Following their results yesterday, Bell Potter have upgraded their rating on TechnologyOne from a Hold to a buy, with a 12-month price target of $29 per share after the company reported their guidance for FY26.
- And finally ending on commodities news, crude oil prices have jumped 4 and a half percent to US$65 per barrel as investors reacted to talks in both the US – Iran tensions and Russia – Ukraine conflict ending without clear breakthroughs. The geopolitical uncertainty has also affected precious metals prices, with gold rebounding 2% to just under US$5000 per ounce, while silver has jumped 5% to US$77 per ounce.
