Market Open: Broad rally on Bullock’s dovish rate stance; whispers of a new US-Iran accord

At The Bell — The U.S. and Iran inching towards a new peace accord is broadly bolstering stocks this morning. ASX 200 futures are pointing to a +0.9% advance at open this morning, which would take the Oz market over 9,000 points.

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Wall Street has been up, which helps our gains, but it’s mostly local factors that are piling up the points on Wednesday, after RBA Governor Michele Bullock seemed to suggest we won’t see any more rate hikes in the near term. Housing and labour are both softening, she told Anika Foundation fundraisers in Sydney.

Adjacent to that, the U.S. Federal Reserve is sharing its rate decision this week: Most investors are fairly confident they’ll keep rates unchanged.

And – we’ll get local June CPI data at 11.30AM this morning, too.

ASX stocks to watch

First up in stocks, we’re getting our hands on Rio Tinto’s (ASX:RIO) half-year results this morning. The mining blue-chip is big enough that it should largely impact sentiments for Wednesday trading, for better or for worse.

Atlas Arteria (ASX:ALX), Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN), Northern Star (ASX:NST), and Nickel Industries (ASX:NIC) are all sharing updates today, too.

Elsewhere, Red Mountain Mining (ASX:RMX) is heading for a +10% pop in indicative pricing after this morning telling shareholders that systematic exploration has now started at the Pioneer tungsten project over in Montana.

Great Western (ASX:GTE) has halted drilling at its Diorama target at Yerrida North after an AC search “did not return any significant copper or gold results.”

And Morgans has hiked Whitehaven (ASX:WHC) to a “buy” on its half-year update.

Buck and ore

In forex, the Oz dollar is buying US 69.7c today,

Then to commodities, all in the greenback,

Brent Crude‘s fade has continued; it’s now at $86.06/barrel,

Iron Ore has dropped -0.1%, selling at $97.70 a tonne in Singapore,

Gold today $4,030/ounce, and,

US natgas futures down, $2.62 per gigajoule.

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

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