Australian traders search out journey shares, Dow Jones hits new document

Pandemic travel websites are on the rise in the Australian stock market as investors turn to the Package with airline tickets at half the federal government price.

The government this morning announced a $ 1.2 billion support package for the travel sector, That still has to recover as the borders remain closed to international travelers.

Stimulus measures include subsidized airline tickets to encourage domestic travel.

By 12:00 p.m. AEDT, stocks on the Flight Center online airline ticket website had increased 10 percent on the news.

This makes it the best performer of the ASX 200 for Thursday so far.

The rival Webjet gained 2.7 percent.

At just under $ 20 per share, Flight Center is now back where it was exactly a year ago.

However, that’s still half the pre-pandemic price.

Although Qantas is a major beneficiary of the travel subsidies, it rose only marginally (+ 0.4 percentage points) to $ 5.19. This will not be finalized at the end of 2020 as border restrictions have been relaxed at the national level.

Corporate Travel Management, a company that organizes business travel, is up 1.4 percent.

Broome is one of 13 locations for subsidized flights. (

ABC Kimberley: Andrew Seabourne

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Qantas boss Alan Joyce welcomed the support package.

“With the introduction of the vaccine, which now gives more security that state borders will remain open, this is the perfect time to give momentum and get people back to travel domestically,” he said.

“Especially considering that there will be no more international tourists for the next seven months.

“We have around 7,500 employees in our international business who have been unemployed for a year and will unfortunately remain on the ground until at least the end of October.

“To be clear, this targeted support will go straight to the staff to help them meet their living expenses while they wait for the international flight to return. It is not a subsidy to Qantas.”

However, the Australian Services Union has slammed the package and stated that, unlike JobKeeper, the support money is not directly linked to jobs.

Despite his company’s stock surge, flight center boss Graham Turner also doubted the package on commercial television this morning, doubting it would help most small tour operators survive.

Afterpay continues its tumultuous journey following PayPal’s announcement

The market closed on Wednesday after commodity stocks were hit by falling world market prices.

Some commodity stocks like Oz Minerals (-2.6 percent) and Ramelius Resources (-3.2 percent) are still affected on Thursday.

Afterpay swings around again.

After a week-long downtrend, the Buy-Now-Pay-Later app closed on Wednesday after technology stocks in the US rose 7.5 percent.

But now Afterpay is bleeding again. It’s currently down 7.8 percent.

This came after the online financial services company PayPal announced yesterday that it was also launching a buy-now-pay-later option in Australia.

So far, PayPal’s new option has been rolled out in the US and the UK, where more than $ 750 million in transactions were processed by the end of the December quarter.

The company now aims to reach 9 million customers in Australia.

Smaller buy-now-pay-later-zip values ​​also fell 6.2 percent on Thursday.

Dow Jones hits new high

The Dow Jones hit a new record during its trading on Wednesday (local time).

Market snapshot at 8:00 a.m. (AEDT):

• ASX 200 futures +0.5 percent; ASX 200 closed -0.8pc at 6,714
• AUD: 77.35 US cents, 55.59 British pence, 64.85 Euro cents, 80.29 Japanese yen, NZ $ 1.01
• USA: Dow Jones + 1.5 shares at 32,297, S&P 500 + 0.6 shares at 3,899, Nasdaq 0 shares at 13,069
• Europe: FTSE 100 + 0 pieces at 6,726, DAX + 0.7 pieces at 14,540, Euro Stoxx 50 + 0.9 pieces at 3,820
• Commodities: Brent crude + 1.1 percentage points at 68.27 USD / barrel, spot gold + 0.4 percentage points at 1,724 USD / ounce

Inflation figures showed that consumer staples prices did not rise as much as expected in February, which worried some investors.

“A lower than expected US CPI point provided a cool breeze in the markets and dispelled fears of an overheated US economy,” said NAB analysts in a briefing.

“So there is nothing right now for the inflationists to raise the alarm while at the same time giving the Fed plenty of breathing space ahead of next week’s meeting.”

The data showed that households were paying more for gasoline, but underlying inflation remained tepid amid weak demand for services such as air travel and hotel accommodation.

Meanwhile US President Joe Biden scored a major political victory after its mammoth stimulus bill was passed his final legislative hurdle in the House of Representatives.

For many Americans, that means direct stimulus payments, as well as money for schools and businesses.

The Dow Jones hit an intraday high on Wednesday (local time). (

Getty / AFP: Spencer Platt

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The Dow Jones reached a record intraday high of 32,381 points in afternoon trading (local time) and ended the race just below (+ 1.5 percentage points) to set a new closing record.

The S&P 500 also rose 0.6 percent, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq was muted.

Investors are switching from buying tech stocks to energy and finance as their minds focus on what is needed in a post-pandemic world, US analyst Peter Tuz said.

“This is essentially the overwhelming topic in the market right now and will likely continue until these things take their course,” he said.

Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, and Microsoft all failed, but none lost more than 1 percent.

That was after Tesla shot up again in the past few days.

Could the AUD reach 83 US cents?

The greenback subsided overnight.

The Australian dollar, on the other hand, rose and bought 77.34 US cents.

“The Australian dollar has risen over 7 cents since the end of October, mainly due to higher commodity prices,” CBA analysts said in a briefing this morning.

“Yesterday (in a speech), RBA Governor Philip Lowe reiterated that the AUD is not overvalued relative to its fundamentals. We agree.

“We estimate that the fair value for AUD / USD is now in a range of 0.77-0.89 centered on 0.83.

“Our mining commodity analyst recently updated our short-term forecasts for commodity prices.

“As a result, we expect the AUD / USD to rise over the next few quarters and trade consistently above 0.8000 before dropping below 0.8000 in 2022.”

ABC / wires