TMH Market Open: ASX200 braces for decline as tech stocks tumble, US Fed remains hawkish

While it seemed to be all good news yesterday with the ASX200 trading at all-time highs on CPI data which almost confirms interest rates won’t rise next week, today is expected to be a different story.

Futures are tipping the market will take a slide of a full per cent after a rough night on Wall Street. While interest rates were kept on hold in the US, the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell strongly suggested rates wouldn’t be cut next month either.

With that, the Nasdaq tumbled two per cent, the S&P 500 fell 1.4 per cent and the Dow Jones dropped 0.7 per cent.

Now it’s also been a big week for reporting by the mega-caps and Microsoft, Alphabet, and Advanced Micro Devices – or AMD, companies that all implement AI, are struggling to meet investor results expectations despite highlighting AI progress.

Alphabet lost seven per cent on market. AMD & Microsoft dropped more than two per cent.

Back home:

There was a slew of quarterly activity reports released yesterday with graphite anode play Talga Group (ASX:TLG) announcing it still has three-quarters of funding at hand and Panoramic Resources’ (ASX:PAN) December report also came in after Market Close. Panoramic is under voluntary administration after recently shutting down mining at its Savannah nickel mine in Western Australia, blaming the nickel price. Unit costs were up more than 35 per cent for the December quarter alone.

And this morning ECS Botanics (ASX:ECS) has announced it’s secured a $9 million offtake agreement with UK-based Rokshaw Limited for the supply of medicinal cannabis.

CBA might be one to watch today, as it rose nearly two per cent to an all-time high yesterday.

Its performance has played a key part in the ASX200 achieving new record levels.

The Federal Treasury has vowed to intensify scrutiny on family trusts, revealing that approximately 1.7 million individuals received nearly $60 billion in income from these tax-friendly structures, commonly used by families and businesses for asset protection and income distribution.

The Aussie dollar is buying 66 US cents.

Iron ore has slipped 1.8 per cent to US$136, crude oil has tanked nearly three per cent to US$75.60, Gold is at US$2034 and natural gas has climbed two per cent to $2.11.