James Gruber

Barclays paired earlier losses ending 0.2% lower after the British bank flagged a $308 million US hit linked to collapsed lender MFS.

The broader banking index, however, gained 1.3%, helping curb losses on the indices.

The energy sector was up 0.6%, lifted by BP, which gained 1.1% after it beat first quarter profit estimates.

It's now time for the watch list.

In Australia, inflation figures for March are out today, with CBA economists forecasting a jump of 1.1% month-on-month and 4.6% year-on-year.

Woodside is scheduled to release its March quarter update too.

In the US, the Federal Reserve will hand down its decision on interest rates today, with rates expected to remain on hold.

There are also earnings reports out from Visa this morning, our time, and tomorrow morning from four of the magnificent seven companies, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.

And now it's time for our one more thing segment.

Well, we're almost into the month of May and there's the old market saying that investors should sell in May and go away.

Is it myth or fact though?

Data from the US going back almost 100 years shows that the average and median returns from May to October, while lower than November to April, are still positive at 3.2% and 5.3% respectively.

Interestingly, though, the biggest downdrafts appear during years leading up to midterm elections in the US.

Academic research suggests this may be caused by uncertainties brought by midterms, which are naturally resolved when the elections take place in November.

In Australia, the sell-in-May phenomenon hasn't been such a great strategy because here we have idiosyncratic factors such as many companies trading ex-dividend between August and October, which can lead to stocks being bid up during what is globally a soft period.

And that's it for today.

The ComSec Media and Markets team is monitoring developments on today's local trading session, so check out our afternoon episode of the podcast for all the key updates.

I'm James Gruber.

Have a great day.

The Australian share market set for a drop at the open, but Wall Street is continuing to hover near record highs.