The Australian share market or S&P/ASX 200 (INDEXASX: XJO)(ASX: XJO) index is set to open higher Tuesday morning, according to data from Sydney Futures Exchange, with UK Bank CYBG Plc (ASX: CYB) in the news.
Here’s the key headline data:
Australian Dollar ($A) (AUDUSD): 75.12 US cents
Dow Jones (DJI): up 0.4%
Oil (WTI): $US70.08 per barrel
Gold: $US1,314.7 per ounce
Overnight, London-listed shares of BHP Billiton Limited (ASX: BHP) and Rio Tinto Limited (ASX: RIO) did not trade due to the Early May Bank Holiday.
Australian Investing News
Making news in Australia, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group (CYBG), previously owned by National Australia Bank Ltd. (ASX: NAB), announced that it has approached the UK’s Virgin Money (LON: VM) in the hope of undertaking a merger. CYBG’s proposal would see Virgin’s shareholders receive 1.1297 CYBG shares for every one Virgin share they hold.
CYBG said it believes the combined business would create the UK’s leading “challenger bank”, with six million individuals and small businesses.
Further down the market, retailer Baby Bunting Ltd (ASX: BBN) announced that its 2018 financial year has been, “adversely affected by the distressed trading of competitors and the liquidation of stock” but remains, “confident in future years’ growth”.
Baby Bunting expects to report profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (called EBITDA) of between $18 million and $20 million. Click here to watch an explainer video of EBITDA.
Building company Fleetwood Corporation Limited (ASX: FWD) provided a trading update to shareholders. Fleetwood expects to report an underlying EBIT result of $5.5 million over its full 2018 financial year.
Budget 2018 – Are You As Excited As Us?
Tonight, the Australian Government’s 2018 Budget will ‘drop’ — that’s 21st Century for “be released”. Proposals put forward by the Government are expected to include changes to aged care, increased infrastructure spending and tax cuts.
We feel like little kids waiting for Santa.
(but we know there’s a high probability we’ll get lumps of coal instead)
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