ASX today − Bulls are at the wheel early in Week 3, with a sharp rebound in oil prices and Wall Street cracking through several all-time highs last Friday in the U.S. both helping Australian shares on to gains in Monday futures.
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Oil has kept trucking under two big shadows: Growing unrest in Iran, and uncertainty regarding how Trump and the U.S. will actually be approaching the whole seized Venezuela oil scheme playing out in the Americas now.
And alongside it, Wall Street’s major indexes climbed on to record levels on Friday despite softer-than-expected U.S. jobs data prints. Impending earnings releases over there are seemingly more interesting for the more bullish traders.
As for our gains, we’re not talking about the world, with tips putting the advance at around 25 points, but it’s enough to turn things green Down Under early.
There’s plenty of ways it could swing, though, especially with this being a stat-heavy week in Australia; we get householding spending indicators and job ad data today, before consumer confidence Tuesday, job vacancies Wednesday, and then wider inflation expectations for January out on Thursday this week.
Now, let’s take a look at Monday’s company news wire.
ASX stocks to watch
First up in Week 3 news, Glencore remains in the headlines as Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) acquisition talks roll on. This week, the heavyweight Swiss mining group has finalised a $600 million taxpayer-funded bailout for its Mount Isa copper smelter (the only such copper smelter in Australia today).
In similar news, America’s securities regulator has dropped its investigations into former Rio finance chief Guy Elliott, on Friday clearing the New York court case.
Elsewhere, Leeuwin Metals (ASX:LM1) has restarted drilling at its Marda Gold Project over the weekend. The main objective there remains the same: Adding to the existing 342,000oz resource at the Southern Cross dig.
Also in gold, second-phase AC drilling at Ibel South has come up trumps for Haranga Resources (ASX:HAR), with the Aussie explorer identifying a potential 800-plus metre continuous mineralised trend.
And, Elixir Energy (ASX:EXR) is nearly done mobilising at Lorelle-3.
Buck and ore
Now – in forex, the Oz dollar buys 66.8 U.S. cents.
Looking at commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore has held its highs, up +0.4% at $108.30 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is up 2.2%, to $63.34/Bbl,
Gold is at $4,524 an ounce, and,
US natgas futures have plummeted -7%, to $3.16 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – good luck, happy trading.
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