Market Open: Selling fear returns after Trump warns US-Iran ceasefire is ‘over’

At The Bell — Australian shares are pacing lower after Donald Trump said the tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran may be over, though he did try to salvage things a little on Thursday (AEST) when he said he doesn’t actually expect the war in the Middle East to restart properly late in Week 28.

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Restart or not, the comments have rattled global markets and oil alike; the latter even briefly surged to over US$80 a barrel for the first time in weeks.

The Dow Jones was hit hardest in Wall Street trading, dropping over -1%, while the S&P 500 slipped red as well. The FTSE in London and the Euro Stoxx both retreated, too, as did Japan’s Nikkei, which was dumped -2.1%.

After looking like we’d come through the worst through the last weeks, this is a bitter blow for any bull traders that had been slowly emerging.

No Oz data today, but China’s sharing consumer stats at 11.30am.

ASX stocks to watch

In stocks, Telstra (ASX:TLS) is now investigating a secondary network fault that has been affecting Triple Zero callers since yesterday’s outage.

The whole thing has been a calamity for the Aussie telco giant, which will now be investigated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The outage impacted millions and suspended phone calls, payment systems, and train services. TLS shares dropped -3% as investors walked away.

Elsewhere, BHP (ASX:BHP) is facing losing $120M revenue daily as workers plan to down tools in Port Hedland next week. Should it happen, it will be the WA mining industry’s most significant industrial action in 25 years.

Electro Optic (ASX:EOS) has secured a $5.7M contract from the Australian Department of Defence’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator to develop an R400 SLINGER system and to keep manufacturing in Australia.

And, B. Riley has hiked Zip Co. (ASX:ZIP) to a “Buy” today, targeting $US4.70.

Buck and ore

In forex, the Oz dollar is buying US 69.3c today,

Then to commodities, all in the greenback,

Brent Crude surged another +6.4% higher, to $78.93/barrel this morning,

Iron Ore up +1.4%, $99.25 a tonne in Singapore,

Gold has dropped slightly again, $4,077/ounce, and,

US natgas futures down, $3.21 per gigajoule.

That’s HotCopper‘s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – happy trading today.

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