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ASX today – With oil and gold sagging lower late in Week 2, the Australian share market is heading for its first red open of the year. Futures are suggesting this dip won’t be too dramatic, though, with them down -0.1% now.
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Neither has had a spectacular fall today, but Trump’s raid on Venezuela had handed oil plenty of tailwinds, and gold’s slow crawl up had seemed unstoppable – each halting even a little seems enough to give traders pause.
That’s certainly the case overseas, where U.S. indexes dropped as much as -1%. Japan’s Nikkei retracted the same, while London dropped -0.7%.
Global sentiments appear stronger than the hope cooling inflation (3.4%) gave Aussie investors yesterday. Housing, food, and transport stayed hot, but general trends were positive in the ABS reports; traders had liked the news to Wed’s close – our first green end to a day this year – but that’s fading.
Maybe company news will change things – let’s have a look now.
ASX stocks to watch
First up, WK2’s headline story rolls on: BlueScope Steel (ASX:BSL) has rejected SGH and Steel Dynamic’s $13.2 billion takeover bid. The company is “worth considerably more than what was on the table,” said chair Jane McAloon.
Elsewhere, Ansell’s (ASX:ANN) chief Neil Salmon is hanging up his hat after thirteen years at the company. Nathalie Ahlström will replace him in mid-February.
Lunnon Metals (ASX:LM8) is heading into Thursday with a win, too, after finally landing regulatory approval at Lady Herial. Clearing the vegetation-related red tape means Lunnon can roll on with its mine schedule; on that front, only one last condition in the Ore Purchase Agreement needs to be completed.
And, Linq Minerals (ASX:LNQ) has caught early attention on the HotCopper forums after hauling in 144 metres at 1g/t gold intercepts today.
Buck and ore
Now – in forex, the Oz dollar buys 67.1 U.S. cents.
Looking at commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore has boomed +2.5%, to sell at $109 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is down -1%, at $60.33/Bbl,
Gold is at $4,460 an ounce, and,
US natgas futures hiked +6.4%, to $3.56 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – good luck, happy trading.
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