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ASX today – Australian shares are heading for a Monday fall this morning, with futures down as much as -0.5% to around 8,650 points after a series of tech misses on Wall Street dropped most state-side AI-related companies.
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While the Oz bourse has few artificial-intelligence exposed stocks, the wider U.S. drop has still crept Down Under to dent early Week 51 sentiments.
And, it’s all part of a wider drop pre-Christmas: The S&P 500 lost over -1%, the Dow was -0.5%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was whacked -1.7%. Then in London, the FTSE struggled to stay above -0.5%; so too the Eurostoxx.
Several global data prints could move the trading needle through Week 51, though, including China’s retail sales, production, and infrastructure updates today. The U.S. has its delayed payrolls – they should have come out more than a month ago, but for the gov’t shutdown there – arriving Tuesday, too.
For Aussie details specifically, we’ll have consumer confidence out Tuesday before third-quarter finance and wealth updates are shared Thursday.
For today, here’s the ASX company news shared through to open.
ASX stocks to watch
First up, Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) is walking away from its lithium grand plans, giving up almost 150,000 hectares of ground in Western Australia and is reportedly looking to sell its mothballed Mt Cattlin lithium mine.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said he’s “cracking down on price gouging” as he introduces sharp fines aimed at Woolies (ASX:WOW) and Coles (ASX:COL). At the same time, the federal government is preparing to ban retailers from charging prices considered “excessive” compared to supply.
Several big deals today, too, including Finder Energy (ASX:FDR) picking up the “Petrojarl,” a floating production storage and offloading vessel.
So, too, Bastion Minerals (ASX:BMO), which landed exploration consent from the Ross River Dena Council this morning. The tick marks the Yukon region in Canada as “open for business,” Bastion said today.
And, Pinnacle (ASX:PIM) has promoted William Witham to CEO.
Buck and ore
Now – in forex, the Oz dollar buys 66.4 U.S. cents.
Looking at commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore has lost -1% to start the week, at $100.45 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude dropped -0.3%, to $61.12/bbl,
Gold is at $4,312 an ounce, and,
US natgas futures lost -2.8% this week, to $4.11 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – good luck, happy trading.
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