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ASX today – The S&P/ASX 200 is forecast to open lower this morning, with SPI futures anticipated to register a 0.4% dip to around 9,038 points following a weak finish last week where the index fell 0.8% to 9,115.2 points.
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Wall Street slid lower prior to the weekend with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 107.58 points or 0.20%, to 53732.41.
The S&P 500 fell after the release of softer-than-expected July retail sales, falling consumer sentiment, while global markets monitored persistent Middle East tensions again affecting energy routes.
Locally, the ABS has found that travel to Australia is on the rise but hasn’t reached its pre-COVID-19 peak
Short-term visitor arrivals to Australia rose by eight per cent over 2025-26 to 9.1 million.
While visits to Australia have risen for the fifth year in a row, they are still three per cent lower than the peak number of visitors to Australia, which was 9.3 million in 2018-19.
Holiday was again the most popular reason for visiting Australia with 45 per cent of visitors here for a holiday. This was followed by 32 per cent of visitors coming to visit family or friends, and six per cent whose reason for visiting was education.
New Zealanders took 1.4 million trips to Australia this year, more than from any other country. They were also the most common travellers ten years ago.
The top five countries visitors came to Australia from were New Zealand, China, the USA, the UK and Singapore.
On the market news front:
Real estate investment trust, the GPT Group (ASX:GPT), has reported solid results for the six months to 30 June 2026.
Financial Highlights
• Funds from operations (FFO) of $338.8 million or 17.7 cents per security (cps)
• Adjusted funds from operations of $263.4 million and a distribution of 12.25 cps
• Statutory net profit after tax for the half year of $400.1 million, with Investment portfolio valuation uplift of $45.0 million.
Macmahon Holdings (ASX:MAH) has entered into an agreement for the partial sale of the Homeground workforce accommodation village in Gladstone, Queensland to Allcap Securities as part of a major new strategic partnership.
Macmahon has agreed to sell up to a 50% interest in Homeground to Allcap based on the asset’s $52 million book value.
Euromanganese (ASX:EMN) has signed an offtake term sheet with 6K Energy for high-grade battery manganese.
Laramide Resources (ASX:LAM) has acquired of exploration licences within one of Europe’s most prospective uranium jurisdictions. Sweden recently completed a series of legislative reforms to once again permit uranium mining.
Buck and ore
Now – in forex, the Oz dollar is buying US$0.708
Looking at commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore is up 0.13 per cent to $95.17 a tonne in Singapore this morning,
Brent Crude gained up 1.67 per cent to $88.520 per barrel
Gold is selling at $4375.50
US natgas futures up 0.22 per cent to $2.7330 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Colin Sandell-Hay – happy trading.
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