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The sharemarket trimmed some of the day's losses but negative sentiment in the banks dragged the index to its second session in the red.
The Australian dollar was last buying US77.07¢.
Despite half the top 200 stocks posting gains, the S&P/ASX 200 ended 0.6 per cent or 36 points lower at 5508. The All Ords finished 0.5 per cent weaker to 5599.
Westpac, was, and remained, the biggest drag on the index, ending 2.6 per cent lower. It took the other banks with it, with CBA down 1.9 per cent and ANZ and NAB 1 per cent lower.
Telstra shares finished 1.6 per cent lower as investors decided not to welcome it mutli-billion dollar spending spree and profit lift.
Rio Tinto fell 1.7 per cent and BHP Billiton lost 1.1 per cent, but its spinoff South32 ended 2.3 per cent higher.
Magellan Financial Group finished the session up 7.2 per cent.
Mesoblast was the best performing stock for the day, up 14.2 per cent, continuing its strong bounce back on positive phase 2 results. It's up more than 20 per cent in the past two days.
St Barbara and Evolution Mining were the two worst performing stocks as the gold price eased.
Santos was one of the casualties of the oil price fall, losing 2.8 per cent.
Information technology was the day's strongest sector, up 1.4 per cent, lifted by Computershare which posted another strong day post results.
Remember the one about cutting interest rates to lower the dollar? Tell that to the Aussie when it was trading above 77 US cents this morning, writes BusinessDay's Michael Pascoe:
It's just like the one about the Reserve Bank cutting interest rates again to create inflation in our economy. It hasn't. It doesn't. It won't. The RBA's single tool, monetary policy, is effectively impotent.
We are a low inflation country in a low inflation world. The cash rate being cut to 1.5 per cent, or down to 1 per cent or 0.5 per cent can't and won't change that. Consumers have become pretty much immune to softer policy. No business is being stimulated to hire an extra worker or buy a new machine because rates are 25 points lower than the previously already-low level. Our central bank has been reduced to pushing on a piece of string.
Which is part of the reason Glenn Stevens used his last speech as RBA governor to effectively tell the federal government to pull its finger out and start governing for the benefit of the nation, to borrow more to invest in productive infrastructure and to stop borrowing to pay wages and pensions.
Stevens of course wasn't as blunt as that, but his language and fiscal advice was the plainest I've heard in his 10 years of piloting the RBA through extremely volatile times. Given the frustration he must feel about the government ignoring the advice, his restraint was remarkable.
Stevens was clearer than he has been before about the problems inherent in cutting interest rates further, but there was actually nothing new in the core advice, his plea to our political masters. The RBA has been offering it publicly for two years now and probably for longer behind closed doors.
It was August 2014 that the man who becomes governor next month let fly at a House of Representatives economics committee hearing, telling the politicians what the country needs to get the animal spirits stirring again. The message has been regularly repeated since then.
The cash rate was 2.5 per cent two years ago. With last week's trimming to 1.5 per cent having negligible beneficial impact, Stevens spelt out the danger of the government continuing to rely on monetary policy for stimulus. Cutting rates is supposed to stimulate the economy by encouraging people to borrow and spend more, but gross household debt is already 125 per cent of GDP.
Shares in Nick Scali have jumped as much as 15 per cent to hit a record high on Thursday following its full-year results.
Chief executive of the furniture retailer, Anthony Scali, said he expects lower interest rates and low unemployment will continue to fuel the housing market and drive demand for furniture.
Profit for the 12 months to June 30 rose 53.1 per cent to $26.15 million, and revenue jumped more than 30 per cent to $203 million, thanks to 11.1 same store sales growth.
Scali says that growth, in an "exceptional" year, was partly due to the full-year benefit of seven stores that opened in the second half of the 2015 financial year.
He said the company expected growth to continue, although profit and sales gains would likely ease somewhat during in FY2017 without the benefit of new stores coming on line.
"The housing cycle has been helping and we have been spending more on marketing," Mr Scali said.
He said he believed the latest Reserve Bank's interest rate cut would bolster residential construction and fuel more demand for furniture.
"In July (the start of 2016/17 year), we had good sales growth again," he said.
"I'm hopeful the lower interest rates and low unemployment levels will continue to help."
Nick Scali declared a 14 cents a share final dividend, fully franked, plus a special fully franked dividend of 3.00 cents.
Telstra's massive $4.5 billion spending binge has spooked investors, writes BusinessDay columnist Elizabeth Knight:
Telstra has embarked on a massive $4.5 billion spending binge - one third of which will be showered on its shareholders and the rest used to defend the company's home turf from competitors that are nipping at its heels.
Telstra's flagship earnings division is mobile, and it is under attack - some of which is self-inflicted, thanks to a series of service bungles around network outages. But the real attack is coming from large rivals, Optus and Vodafone, whose networks are getting better and whose customer prices are lower.
Telstra's decision to spend $3 billion on improving its networks is a defensive move - it's not about receiving some major boost in earnings down the track. Rather, Australia's telco giant recognises that profits will fall off a cliff over the next few years as a result of the National Broadband Network.
Telstra said that despite compensation payments from the government, the existence of the NBN will ultimately cost Telstra around $2 to $3 billion in annual earnings - or around 25 per cent of its profit.
So it needs to have another roll of the dice - in much the same way as it did six years ago under the previous Thodey management. Back then, it sacrificed near-term profits to make a massive investment in networks.
Chief executive Andy Penn won't need to sacrifice profit or dividends this year. Indeed, shareholders were rewarded with a $1.5 billion share buyback, the details of which he outlined on Thursday. The company has plenty of cash and a healthy balance sheet to fund the $3 billion spending, which will primarily be directed at enhancing its networks.
But the $3 billion it plans to invest over three years is the price it needs to pay to stay ahead of the competition.
The various outages which Telstra has experienced over the past six months are evidence enough that even the established networks' operations need to be maintained very carefully, and that retaining the status as the premium network provider can be precarious.
Treasurer Scott Morrison has made a preliminary decision to block the 99-year lease of NSW power asset Ausgrid to either Chinese state-owned company State Grid, or Hong Kong-based Cheung Kong Infrastructure.
Stressing it was a preliminary decision, Mr Morrison said it would be contrary to Australia's national security interests to allow the lease to proceed.
The companies will have a week to respond to concerns.
"I have invited the bidders to make submissions to me by 18 August 2016 in order to make a final decision after that time," he said.
There has been an extensive period of engagement with the New South Wales Government and the bidders around the proposed lease. This has involved a detailed examination of national interest issues and possible measures which could mitigate identified risks.
"In particular, during the review process national security issues were identified in critical power and communications services that Ausgrid provides to businesses and governments.
"I am, of course, open to consider what the bidders put to me, but at this stage no suitable mitigations have been identified that would, for the proposed transaction structure, appropriately address the identified risks."
In a decision which at least temporarily mitigates the sticky politics of selling such a sensitive asset to a Chinese-government company, Mr Morrison did not sound confident that the sale would proceed to either company.
On Sunday, Mr Morrison said his decision would be guided primarily by national security concerns.
The NSW government expects to net more than $10 billion from the 99-year lease of 50.4 per cent of the electricity distributor, which supplies more than 1.6 million homes and businesses in NSW.
We posted earlier about the US-based economist calling for stronger iron ore prices on Chinese (and US) stimulus support.
ANZ has released a note on expectations of higher steel prices supporting the commodity. Their key points:
With its strong correlation with Chinese steel prices, iron ore will continue to be dictated by policy measures in China. While the restructuring of the country's steel industry remains slow, recent news suggests another round of closures is imminent. This should keep steel prices high.
This could be supported by an infrastructure-led pickup in steel demand. The recent heavy rain and flooding in north China and along the Yangtze River has caused substantial damage. Any subsequent repairs and reconstruction could support steel demand in the medium term.
This comes at a time when steel inventories and smelting margins are low. Thus, even a fleeting suggestion that the market may tighten results in a spike in steel prices. As such, the likelihood of iron ore prices falling back to $US50/tonne in the short term is rapidly declining.
Time for a lunchtime recap:
The sharemarket is off close to 1 per cent, dragged heavily by the big four banks which are reeling after Westpac's trading update.
The S&P/ASX 200 is 54 points or 0.9 per cent lower at 5489.8, while the All Ords is off 0.8 per cent at 5583.7.
Westpac itself is down 3.1 per cent, among the day's worst performing stocks, after it said subdued institutional activity and a decline in fees from debt markets would weigh on its non-interest income.
CBA is 1.9 per cent lower, ANZ is off 1.5 per cent and NAB is down 1.4 per cent.
BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto also remain in the red, but have clawed back some earlier losses, down 0.8 per cent and 1.9 per cent respectively. Gold mining names are also off, with Newcrest Mining down 1.8 per cent.
Coal miners are higher, with Whitehaven up 3.3 per cent and South 32 up 1.6 per cent.
Telstra too has shed some of the early gloom, but still down 1.3 per cent.
Magellan is flying higher, up 5.8 per cent following its trading update. Mesoblast investors continue to cheer its phase 2 rheumatoid arthritis results, the best performing stock so far, up 12.2 per cent.
Bank stocks were trading sharply lower on Thursday after Westpac Banking Corp pointed to softer non-interest income in the third quarter due to subdued markets and rising funding costs.
Westpac shares were down 3.5 per cent at $29.76 at midday after it told the market that "institutional activity has remained subdued leading to lower markets-related income and a decline in fees from debt markets activities".
In a third quarter capital, funding and asset quality update, Westpac said this, along with higher insurance claims, had contributed to third quarter non-interest income "being around 5 per cent below the 1H16 quarterly average".
CBA shares were down 2 per cent at $75.88 after various analysts highlighted softness in the bank's full year result on Wednesday, including the continuing decline in return on equity, weakening revenue and the modest deterioration in asset quality.
UBS analyst Jonathan Mott said the mortgage repricing put through last week when CBA held back part of the Reserve Bank's interest rate cut was merely paying for discounting on new loans, "which is required to stem market share losses given the weakness of its proprietary sales" as more mortgages are written by brokers.
He described CBA's fee income as being "weak", with commissions and wealth management returns "down sharply", while "asset quality is now on a deteriorating trend".
Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Wiles said he expected CBA's return on equity to continue to decline and for bad debts to increase in the 2017 year.
Credit Suisse analyst Jarrod Martin said while CBA's margins are holding up reasonably well and bad debts are relatively stable, "revenue growth is under considerable pressure" and "dividend sustainability pressures have increased".
In its market update on Thursday, Westpac said its non-performing loans remain near cyclical lows. However, it pointed to a small increase in the number of loans more than 90 days past due but not impaired, mainly residential mortgages.
These reflected changes to the way the bank reports mortgages in hardship and also higher delinquencies in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland, it said.
Westpac also said it had put $1.4 billion more business loans onto its watchlist, due to "increasing stress in mining-related regions for some business bank customers" and the "impact of stress in the New Zealand dairy industry".
Concerns about banking headwinds blew over the rest of the sector on Thursday morning, with ANZ Banking Group shares down 1.7 per cent to $26.29 and National Australia Bank down 1.1 per cent to $26.53 around midday.
Read more.
Iron ore will probably extend 2016's rally as China takes further steps to stoke growth and the dollar weakens, according to Prestige Economics' Jason Schenker, whose rare bullish call in the final quarter of last year is turning out to be right.
While the ride may be choppy, the commodity will trade at about $US60 a ton this half and average $US55 in 2016, said Schenker, president of Texas-based Prestige. That compares with $US53 so far. Further gains are in store, with $US62 seen in 2017 and $US72 the year after, he said.
Iron ore has soared in 2016, snapping three years of declines, as stimulus and a credit-fueled property boom in China lifted demand. The upsurge confounded expectations for further losses, and prompted banks from Goldman Sachs to Morgan Stanley to revise their forecasts higher. Last October, as iron ore racked up a double-digit loss, Schenker had predicted a rebound, saying that China's government would bolster the economy and steel exports from the world's largest producer would hold up.
Ore with 62 percent content delivered to Qingdao tracked by Metal Bulletin has risen 39 percent in 2016, and was at $US60.58 a dry tonne on Wednesday. The gains have come as the daily rate of steel production in China hit a record, while shipments of steel products held near an all-time high.
Iron ore may benefit as China continues to stabilise, while in the US, a softening economy prompts the Federal Reserve to switch tack, adding accommodation, according to Schenker. The dollar is going to weaken, which should be supportive for commodities, he said.
"Additional stimulative Fed policy should be supportive of iron ore prices because it does two things: it not only stimulates the US economy, it's also likely to weaken the greenback," he said. In China, "it's quite possible that they may need to engage in more stimulus, especially if we see the US economy begin to weaken further."
Morgan Stanley has been mandated to sell Woolworths' petrol station business, industry sources told the AFR's Street Talk.
Sources said the US investment bank had been working on a potential sale in recent months and had reached out to interested parties.
The unit is expected to be worth $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion.
ASX-listed Caltex Australia is expected to be interested. It knows Woolworths' petrol business well, as fuel supplier and a partner of the business.
Other potential buyers include UK-based oil supermajor BP, which has also shown some interest in the unit, as previously revealed by this column, along with fellow fuel industry players Puma Energy and Vitol.
Woolworths operates about 500 convenience stores under the Caltex brand, selling more than 4 billion litres of fuel per year. Sales at Woolworths petrol division were worth $5.63 billion in the 2014/15 financial year.
The potential sale comes as Woolworths also seeks to sell its hardware chain, headed by Masters and Home Timber and Hardware, and considers the future of other businesses including EziBuy.
Oil declined after a government report showed US crude inventories increased on weakening demand from refineries.
Crude inventories rose 1.06 million barrels, according to an Energy Information Administration report. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast a 1.5 million-barrel decline. Refineries used 255,000 barrels a day less crude than a week earlier. Oil production and imports declined.
"Refineries are cutting back on crude runs and as a result inventories are rising again," said Craig Bethune, a fund manager at Manulife Asset Management in Toronto who focuses on energy and natural resources investments. "Refiners are doing what they have to do because gasoline and diesel supplies are so high. They'll soon be performing seasonal maintenance, which will cut runs further."
West Texas Intermediate for September delivery dropped $US1.06, or 2.5 per cent, to $US41.71 a barrel at the close of trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Total volume traded was 25 per cent above the 100-day average.
Brent for October settlement slipped 93 cents, or 2.1 per cent, to $US44.05 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude traded at a $US1.59 premium to WTI for October delivery.
US crude stockpiles rose to 523.6 million, leaving supplies at the highest seasonal level in decades, the EIA report showed. Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI and the nation's biggest oil-storage hub, rose by 1.16 million.
Crude imports into the US dropped 334,000 barrels a day to 8.4 million. Arrivals the prior week were at the highest level since October 2012. Crude production fell by 15,000 barrels a day to 8.45 million.
Refineries reduced operating rates by 1.1 percentage points to 92.2 per cent of capacity. Plants usually begin to ratchet back operations in August as the peak-demand driving season approaches its end. Over the past five years, refiners' thirst for oil has dropped an average of 1.2 million barrels a day from July to October.
Gasoline supplies dropped to 235.4 million last week. Production grew 1.1 per cent to 10.1 million barrels a day. US consumption of the fuel averaged 9.78 million barrels a day in the four weeks ended August 5, little changed from the prior period and the highest seasonal level in at least a decade.
Saudi Arabia pumped a record 10.67 million barrels of oil a day in July, according to a report from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The major exporter joins Russia and Iran in boosting shipments to big markets such as India and China.
As we headlined earlier, the Australian dollar firmed above US77¢ overnight, 2 per cent higher in little more than a week since the RBA cut the benchmark interest rate to 1.5 per cent.
Australia continues to deliver one of the highest yields within developed markets, so, it, along with the kiwi, are causing headaches for their respective central banks. As reported earlier, the kiwi is up more than 1 per cent in the wake of this morning's RBNZ cash rate cut, but appears unwilling to indicate more aggressive stimulus it needs, giving confidence to foreign buyers.
"The RBNZ delivered a 25bp cut to take the OCR to 2%, but failed to meet bullish market expectations on the forward guidance for the bill rate, indicating a terminal rate of 1.8%," ANZ economists wrote.
"The reaction of the currency was similar to the August RBA meeting, where an RBA rate cut saw the AUD rise. In the current environment where carry is king, central banks with high yielding currencies need to over-deliver on market expectations to get any reaction from their currency."
Also keeping the currencies buoyant is a lower US dollar, which has tumbled a second day following some weak data. According to BK Asset Management's Boris Schlossberg:
"The selloff has been to yesterday's weak productivity figures which sowed seeds of doubt that the Fed would actually tighten rates despite relatively robust jobs data. Yesterday's Non-Farm Productivity report shocked the market printing at -0.5% versus 0.4% eyed," he said.
"This was the one of the worst readings in years and greatly soured sentiment towards the dollar as traders quickly became skeptical that the Fed will want to tighten against such lacklustre productivity growth."
The competition watchdog will not oppose a bid for The Good Guys by JB Hi-Fi, paving the way for an acquisition if an initial public offering is not pursued.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission concluded that the two retailers focus on different product categories and customers, so an acquisition would not significantly reduce competition.
ACCC chairman Rod Sims said JB Hi-Fi has traditionally been a shopping centre retailer selling consumer electronics, while The Good Guys has mostly focussed on whitegoods and home appliances and has sold out of home retail centres.
"Other retailers such as Harvey Norman have a much higher degree of overlap with the Good Guys than JB Hi-Fi," Mr Sims said in a statement on Thursday.
In its own statement JB Hi-Fi said it "continues to participate in the sale process but has made no decision and nor has it entered into any agreement."
Televisions are the main concern in the ACCC review given high market concentration (more than 50% combined TV category share).
The ACCC's decision was postponed for a week to allow further submissions from stakeholders.
JB Hi-Fi is keen to buy The Good Guys to accelerate its home appliances strategy.
JB Hi-Fi shares have risen 10 per cent to record highs of $26.63 in the last six weeks in expectation of a deal and its advisers are already planning a capital raising to fund a deal if JB Hi-Fi is the successful bidder.
Read more ($)
The ASX has started the session with a sharp fall, falling more than 0.7 per cent and taking the index back to the 5500 mark in a broad sell-off that includes Telstra, the big banks and the resources giants.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is 0.7 per cent, or 42 points lower at the open to 5507.
Leading the index lower is Telstra, which has fallen 1.9 per cent as investors chew on its profit results, not thinking highly of them so far.
The banks are also all lower in early trade, after a weak session yesterday, with Westpac the biggest drag on the index, down 2.3 per cent, while CBA is 1.7 per cent lower, ANZ off 1.1 per cent and NAB down 0.9 per cent.
Resources stocks are also under pressure after the oil price tumbled overnight, weighing on Wall Street.
BHP Billiton is off 1.3 per cent while Rio Tinto is down 2.4 per cent. AGL Energy is down 1.9 per cent a day after its profit results.
There are some green stocks, with 65 of 200 ekeing out a gain. Bluescope Steel is the strongest by weight, up 3.2 per cent, while Magellan's results are being cheered, with the fund manager up 3.6 per cent.
Computershare is having another strong start a day, continuing its bounce back from a three year low following its profit results yesterday.
JB Hi-Fi is up 3.1 per cent after the ACCC paved the way for its acquisition of The Good Guys.
Automotive Holdings is the best performing stock so far, up 6.7 per cent after new CEO John McConnell was announced this morning. He succeeds retiring CEO Bronte Howson.
Magellan Financial Group posted a 14 per cent rise in full-year net profit to $198.4 million on higher management and performance fees.
The $40 billion global fund manager will pay a dividend of 38¢ a share, fully franked. Earnings per share rose by 13 per cent.
Chief executive Hamish Douglass is also Magellan's chief investor and co-founder. He observed growing investor interest in the company's specialist infrastructure funds as a source of strong inflows. "We are particularly pleased with the deepening penetration of our Global Equities and Global Listed Infrastructure strategies with retail Australian investors, advisers and brokers," he said.
The fund manager held its positions in Lloyds Banking Group and Tesco, defying the upheaval in UK equities post-Brexit. Its other significant holdings include Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple and Visa. In financial year 2016, the Magellan Global Fund lost 0.1 per cent of its value, after fees. Its three- and five-year track record is a more flattering 13.1 per cent and 19 per cent average annual return.
Magellan has a market value of $3.8 billion.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut rates earlier this morning by a quarter percentage point to 2 per cent because of uncertain global growth. It was the sixth such rate cut in 14 months.
Signalling that further easing would likely be required, Governor Graeme Wheeler said "global growth is below trend despite being supported by unprecedented levels of monetary stimulus".
"Significant surplus capacity remains across many economies and, along with low commodity prices, is suppressing global inflation. Some central banks have eased policy further since the June Monetary Policy Statement, and long-term interest rates are at record lows. The prospects for global growth and commodity prices remain uncertain. Political risks are also heightened," he said.
The kiwi dollar, which was trading at US72.19¢ before the 7am AEST announcement fell as low as US71.50¢, before then beginning to climb anew. The surge came as markets had already priced in the August cut, while the lack of an easing bias in the statement gave yield hunters cause to bid up the currency to US72.98¢. At 1.75 per cent, New Zealand still has one of the highest interest rates in the developed world.
The futures market had indicated on Wednesday that traders were pretty much certain of a monetary policy easing and even saw 20 percent odds for a further half-percentage-point drop in the key rate.
The Australian dollar also spiked briefly in the face of the cut, before returning to US77.19¢.
"Weak global conditions and low interest rates relative to New Zealand are placing upward pressure on the New Zealand dollar exchange rate. The trade-weighted exchange rate is significantly higher than assumed in the June Statement," Nick Tuffley, chief economist at ASB said.
Telstra will invest an extra $3 billion in networks over the next three years as it tries to win back customers following a series of network outages.
The announcements came as Australia's largest telecommunications provider reported a full-year profit of $5.8 billion, up 36.6 per cent from the previous corresponding period, and buoyed by the $1.8 billion sale of Autohome. It also confirmed a $1.5 billion buyback.
Revenue climbed 1.5 per cent to $25.9 billion.
Telstra is forecasting low single-digital earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation growth in the 2017 financial year.
Chief executive Andy Penn said the company's capital expenditure-to-sales ratio would increase to about 18 per cent over the next three financial years, its highest point since financial 2009.
Telstra has had a series of network outages across its mobile and broadband networks this year and faced heavy consumer backlash over the issues with the telco basing its business around charging a premium for superior service.
"Our customers and our networks are our biggest assets. We must invest to set new standards and deliver excellent experiences for our customers," Mr Penn said.
"This will position us to deliver significant customer benefits and reinforce our market differentiation over the longer term. It will also deliver business benefits such as capital efficiency, reduced operating costs and increased revenue."
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The ASX is set to open lower after Wall Street slipped overnight.
1. Commodities: Copper has biggest one day rally in two weeks, gaining 2.2% as commodities gain off the US weaker dollar
2. Currencies: Aussie dollar adds 0.5% and closes above US$0.77 as commodity-related currencies rally overnight
3. Energy: WTI oil drops 3% as the weekly EIA inventories see another weekly crude oil increase
4. RBNZ cuts rates as expected, but given it was fully priced in the Kiwi dollar took that as an excuse to rally 1.2% since the announcement making it a full 1.8% gain over the past 24 hours
5. ASX: SPI Futures are pointing to a 5 point decline, IG is calling the ASX to open 9 points lower at 5334
6. Equities: Dow -0.3%, S&P 500 -0.3%, Nasdaq -0.4%, Stoxx 50 -0.4%, FTSE +0.2%, CAC -0.4%, DAX -0.4%
7. Earnings: Virgin Australia, Magellan Financial, Goodman Group, Telstra
8. US dollar index drops 0.6% to 95.6 as US bond yields fall,
The major story overnight is the dramatic 3% drop in WTI oil. Oil is increasingly pulling back towards the US$40 a barrel level and many in the markets are concerned that the shorts may even be looking for prices to drop down towards the US$35 level.
Crude oil inventories in the weekly EIA report saw the third weekly increase in a row despite the market expecting a decline. Although of late the oil market has been very concerned about the growing supplies of gasoline and distillate inventories, and on this front the EIA reported much bigger than expected drawdowns in both gasoline and distillate inventories. But the issue is that the margins for refiners may have collapsed so much that they have simply stopped producing and now we could be about to start seeing much bigger increases in crude oil inventories again as the refined oil product market has become completely saturated.
OPEC also released its monthly report overnight, showing a further month-on-month increase from the group in July. And most concerning for the supply-demand balance of the oil market, Saudi Arabia produced a record output of 10.67 million barrels a day in July.
Good morning and welcome to Markets Live for Thursday.
Your editor today is Vanessa Desloires.
This blog is not intended as investment advice.
BusinessDay with wires.
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