Week 12’s global rally is holding firm early this Tuesday morning, with ASX 200 futures pointing to a +0.83% gain (to 7,907 points) when trade begins at 10am in Sydney.
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It’s not the only rally everyone’s watching either – after nudging around the historic high several times, gold is trading above $3,000 an ounce today for the very first time. For many, the safe haven asset has been seen as a perfect way to dodge all the uncertainty fuelled by Trump and his tariffs in the short term.
Though there has been a rush towards gold, stocks have enjoyed a green bounceback through Monday and Tuesday this week too: Today, all three major U.S. indices returned some recent losses. The Dow Jones led the way, up 0.8%.
The Fed Reserve’s next rate cut decision – due on Thursday for us Aussies – could throw things in disarray again, but for the time being, hope’s fuelling a dovish rally.
The Oz dollar has also strengthened against the greenback gain; more on that a little later.
Back home, ASX companies seem to be slow rolling things in Week 12 – after a deluge of announcements through Monday, there’s only been one price-sensitive update shared to the market by 8am AEDT (at time of writing).
Big four bank NAB (ASX:NAB) will likely be one of the biggest movers and shakes though after CFO Nathan Goonan defected to Westpac Bank (ASX:WBC) yesterday in a near-unheard-of banking leadership role swap.
So too Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) after the leading miner just scored a “buy” upgrade from UBS that sparked a lithium and battery metals stock rally.
Eyes will also be on Opthea (ASX:OPT) as its slow shorts build-up continues this week.
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RBA assistant governor Sarah Hunter is also due to speak at the AFR Banking Summit in Sydney at around 10.20am today; that keynote will be very closely watched.
Looking at forex, the Aussie dollar is buying 63.8 US cents.
To commodities, which are in the greenback,
Iron Ore has slipped nearly 2% to $101.95 a tonne in Singapore,
Gold is, as mentioned earlier, selling at a historically high $3,012 per ounce,
Brent Crude is trading at $71, and,
US natgas futures are at $3.99 per gigajoule.
That’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre, stick with us for HotCopper’s Market Update.