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Good morning and happy Monday. Futures are pointing to a soft drop for the ASX 200 today, down 0.3%, as Australian investors hold their breath before the latest RBA rate call on Tuesday even as Wall Street strings more records together.
The S&P 500 in particular enjoyed a glamorous end to last week, closing at a record high for the 57th time in a row; the tech-filled Nasdaq composite too chalked in a new top.
Most of the reason for the pre-Christmas bull run in the U.S. is because State-side investors are fairly convinced the Federal Reserve is about to dish up several cuts. Even an unexpected tick up in unemployment data (from 4.1% to 4.2%) did very little to dull the eager expectations through Wall Street last week.
Not so elsewhere, with South Korea still in turmoil; an attempt to impeach Yoon Suk Yeol for his martial law declaration failed after a boycott from the ruling party.
The Paris bourse has bounced back though with Macron now choosing a new French PM.
At home, Aussie investors will be driven by rate cut calls like their U.S. counterparts – the difference is our local moves are based around the RBA (which unveils its next decision tomorrow at 2.30pm AEDT) holding fire again.
Aussie markets have already priced in a 9% chance Michele Bullock and the RBA slice rates by 25 basis points; much more likely is we’re in a lull until May.
Former HSBC wealth and personal banking chief executive Nunu Matos has today been named Shayne Elliot’s successor at the ANZ Group (ASX:ANZ) after Elliott announced he was leaving the role after nine years. Elliott was the longest-serving major bank CEO. He will see out managing operations until July next year.
Dexus (ASX:DXS) also bid to acquire student housing player Campus Living Villages; the $7.5 billion ASX-listed landlord may face a challenge from Canada’s Brookfield.
Major AGMs this week include meets for Westpac (ASX:WBC) and Myer (ASX:MYR).
Newcomers DigiCo and Golden Horse are both slated to join the bourse this Thursday.
Looking at forex, the Aussie dollar is buying 63.9 US cents.
To commodities, which are in the greenback,
Iron Ore hype has dulled somewhat, down 1.19% to $102.55 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is trading at $71.12,
Gold is trading at $2,658 per ounce, and,
US natgas futures are at $3.07 per gigajoule.
That’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre, stick with us for HotCopper’s Market Update.
