BPO TV

Market wraps 19th August 2020

Morning Bell - Jessica Amir

Overnight U.S. stocks erased their COVID-19 losses, knocking the top off the previous record with the S&P500 rising 0.2%. This is following the U.S. Treasury Secretary saying Trump wants to move forward with more economic stimulus.

The fall of the U.S. dollar has helped the Aussie dollar gain 1% this week and overnight it hit 72.40 U.S. cents, its highest level since February last year.

The Federal Government inked a deal to produce a COVID-19 vaccine with AstraZeneca. We know CSL is already in talks with AstraZeeneca to develop the vaccine, so keep your eyes peeled on CSL (ASX:CSL).

Companies reporting today: CSL (ASX:CSL), Inovcare (ASX:IVC), Brambles (ASX:BXB), Amcor (ASX:AMC), Dominos Pizza (ASX:DMP), Tabcorp (ASX:TAH), Dexus (ASX:DXS), Stockland (ASX:SGP) and Vicinity Centres (ASX:VCX).

ANZ (ASX:ANZ) reported a strong rebound in the third quarter which was a stark differennce to Westpac (ASX:WBC) that reported yesterday.

Keep a watch on Treasury Wine Estates (ASX:TWE) and Orora (ASX:ORA), which are expecting further downside today. This is following the announcement of China’s Ministry of Commerce kicking off an investigation into Australian businesses allegedly dumping wine at discounted prices.

Local trading ideas:

  • Monadelphous’ (ASX:MND) buy rating and price was upgraded after its results yesterday revealed it has a brighter future.
  • Westpac (ASX:WBC) was maintained as a hold by Bell Potter, even though the bank scraped its final dividend.
  • Australia’s largest miner, BHP (ASX:BHP) was maintained as a buy by UBS with a $40 price target.