ASX Market Open: French far-right victory relief; US green on first day of H2; ASX200 to dip | July 2, 2024

The ASX200 is tipped to fall by -0.20% despite green nights in Europe and the US. 

It was a big night in France with the far right Le Pen party winning 33% of the national vote in the first round. Second round votes will be held on July 7.

However, that 33% win wasn’t as bad as many markets were expecting.

The French CAC 40 rocketed out the gate when French markets opened then quickly pared gains before riding out on an intraday plateau.

The Euronext 100 jumped to 1.45% intraday at 8pm Sydney time overnight, while the Euro Stoxx Banks index was up 2.35%.

At the same time, US futures were modestly in the green pre-market after a mixed day on Friday. Sentiment gauges ahead of trade read ‘neutral.’

Also in the US: the Supreme Court has been widely perceived to have granted Trump immunity from election interference trials overnight. 

US markets at close finished up with the S&P 500 up +0.27% and the NASDAQ up 0.83%.

Looking to Australia,

Today we get the latest RBA Minutes. Traders will be reading to see just how serious the central bank might be about raising rates in the coming months.

Meanwhile, on the ASX:

Uranium major Deep Yellow (ASX:DYL) has announced its advancement of funding for the Namibian Tumas uranium project.

The company has appointed private Nedbank Limited as a lead arranger and bookrunner to organise funding with the bank previously exposed to uranium mine economics.

Elsewhere, Ansell (ASX:ANN) has confirmed it finalised its completion of Kimberley-Clark’s PPE business overnight. 

The deal was first announced back in April and finally passed the line on Monday evening US time for the new Australian financial year.

Finally, Top End Energy (ASX:TEE) has advised on its receipt of government approval to acquire NT-based acreage from Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting.

The company will be exploring for hydrocarbon resources in the Beetaloo not far from freshly US-listed Tamboran resources.

In forex, the AUD is still buying 0.67 US cents. 

Turning to commodities, brent crude is up 2% to US$86.68 per barrel while gold is up 0.22% to US$2,331.60 per ounce. Iron ore staged a 3.24% rally overnight to US$109.80 per tonne, and, US natural gas futures are down -4.65% to US$2.48 per gigajoule. 

That’s Market Open, we’ll be with you later for an update. 

Note: an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the ABS will release retail and housing approvals data on Tuesday. That is incorrect; that data comes out on Wednesday July 3 2024.