Australian market set to open higher

Local data out on Thursday includes the release of official employment figures for September.

In Australia, the market on Thursday made modest gains on expectations that weak economic data from the United States and disappointing jobs numbers in Australia will keep interest rates low. But unemployment has remained stymied above 6 per cent since May 2014.

“What we are seeing over the last few days is weakness again in the oil and gas space; iron ore has fallen; copper’s off its highs, and we’ll probably see another leg down in the Aussie dollar”, he said.

The Australian sharemarket reversed early losses as investors bought the dip in the major banks on expectations Westpac had paved the way for an official interest rate cut and fatter lending margins.

U.S. retail spending rose at half the rate expected by economists.

“The market is suffering a little bit of a hangover from yesterday’s numbers out of China”, Ms Lee said.

Mr Tevfik said the bottom-up drivers for local stocks “if anything” look better now than they did at the start of 2015, calling the ASX200 index to hit 6,000 points by the end of next year.

Australian market indexes declined for the third day in a row and energy and banking stocks led the decliners.

BHP Billiton added 1.78 per cent to $25.12, while Rio Tinto gained 2.3 per cent to $54.25.

Benchmark Brent crude lost 1.2 per cent, to $US49.24 a barrel overnight after a heavy 5.3 per cent fall on Monday.

Whitehaven Coal delivered a strong lift in quarterly production.

The stock opened at $1.96 and closed at $1.83.

Westpac shocked markets today by announcing an across the board 20 point hike on all its mortgages to bolster its capital base in addition to a $3.5 billion capital raising.

National Australia Bank was up 30 points, or 0.95 per cent, at 31.82, Commonwealth Bank gained $1.02, or 1.35 per cent, to $76.42 and ANZ rose 14 cents, or 0.49 per cent, to $28.70 at 1025 AEDT.

Banks were lower after Westpac said it is looking to raise additional capital of $3.5 billion.