OVERNIGHT MARKETS ROUND UP – 24/04/14

All eyes were on tech giants Facebook and Apple last night at they both smashed through their expectations, pushing NASDAQ futures higher. Apple exceeded sales by selling 43.7m iPhones for the non-holiday quarter, significantly beating estimates and resulting in revenues driving a record 4.6% higher. Apple took this positive opportunity to tell investors they are to repurchase $30bn of its shares whilst announcing a seven-for-one stock split, pushing shares in the company up over 7% during after-hours trading. Facebook shares also enjoyed gains during after-hours, jumping over 3% as the social media giant announced profits have almost tripled thanks to its mobile advertising. 

Throughout the night, Asian shares didn’t take hold of the positive sentiment seen by US tech stocks as the Nikkei fell almost 1% as talks between Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe failed to make a deal. 

Moving onto today’s trading session, we could see some volatility around 09:00 as the German Ifo Business Climate figure is set to be released, forecasted at 110.5. Forex markets could also get particularly choppy at 10:00 as ECB President Mario Draghi is set to speak at a conference in Amsterdam. Continuing into the afternoon, USD Core Durable Goods Orders and Unemployment Claims are both due out at 13:30, forecasted to come in at 0.6% and 309k respectively.