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The ASX can’t quite figure out where it’s headed today, with ASX 200 futures see-sawing early through this Wednesday morning – and right now, things are pointing to the thinnest of positive green opens once we get underway.
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There’s plenty to keep investors dubious either way, not least the RBA’s 0.25-point rate cut yesterday – which it immediately followed with hawkish sentiments.
RBA governor Michele Bullock warned expecting more cuts may be “too confident.”
From the other side though, reigning Treasurer Jim Chalmers then said he now believes “the worst of the inflation challenge is behind us” this year.
Wall Street hasn’t helped guide the way for Oz investors much either. The U.S. bourse returned after its President’s Day break to yo-yo; the Dow Jones and Nasdaq composite especially touched both green and red today.
Reporting season may give the best blueprint for hump day trade, with NAB (ASX:NAB) a standout among the company’s sharing half-year earnings. NAB just passed on the RBA cut in full, as did all other major banks.
Also sharing H1FY25 reports are Santos (ASX:STO), James Hardie Industries (ASX:JHX), and Goodman Group (ASX:GMG) – the last of whom also just pulled the trading brakes for a 24-hour stoppage. It came just minutes before its release.
Another market mover may be the Aussie wages data coming out at 11.30am.
Ebos Group (ASX:EBO), which owns the Terry White Chemist chain, has named former Orica Limited (ASX:ORI) group executive Adam Hall as its CEO from July.
Also to watch, MinRes (ASX:MIN) is teed up to face its shareholders today to defend massive first half-losses and more Chris Ellison questions.
Looking at forex, the Aussie dollar is buying 63.5 US cents.
To commodities, which are in the greenback,
Iron Ore has lifted 1.09% to sell at $106.85 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is trading at $75.81,
Gold continues to spike and is at $2,944 per ounce, and,
US natgas futures surged as much as 6.9% to sell at $3.98 per gigajoule.
That’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre, stick with us for HotCopper’s Market Update.
