Market Open: Oz shares up as Wall Street follows oil, gold lower; labour/job data to come

At The Bell — Australian shares are heading for another +0.2% advance this Thursday morning, even as commodities like oil, gold, and Bitcoin all fade. Wall Street, too, has been struggling under AI bubble fears, but that (for once) won’t touch us Down Under… at least, before we get to the opening bell.

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U.S. markets have been mixed, with the Dow Jones up – that may be what we’re following now – while the S&P and Nasdaq dropped on a tech slip.

We have more Oz stats out today as well, following on from that inflation print on Wednesday, with May’s labour force report out at 11.30AM. Early expectations are that print will show the economy added more than 40,000 jobs last month, while the jobless rate eased slightly, to 4.4% last month.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics is getting in on the Week 26 releases as well, and will be sharing quarterly job vacancies and monthly household spending today. It all adds up to a big picture of how Oz is faring into FY27.

Jonathon Davidson and I will unpack all that – and the next RBA call – on the HotCopper Wire today, alongside Inghams, WiseTech, and Nanoveu.

ASX stocks to watch

Now, on companies, Prospect Resources (ASX:PSC) has produced high-grade copper concentrates with “excellent recoveries” in maiden metallurgical tests at Kabikupa. The explorer only needed a single cleaning stage.

Over in gold, PacGold (ASX:PGO) has completed a second pour from White Dam this week, delivering a gold dore bar weighing ~100oz, and New Murchison Gold (ASX:NMG) has today increased Garden Gully’s resource estimate by 47%; an “excellent” return for near-term mine planning in Meekatharra.

Elsewhere, Baby Bunting (ASX:BBN) has this week downgraded its second-half profit guidance following a softer fourth quarter, which the company says was driven by weak consumer spending. BBN down -42% YTD.

Corporate Travel (ASX:CTD) won’t make its self-set June deadline for restarting on the bourse, with overcharged customers not agreeing to terms.

And, MinRes (ASX:MIN) plans to shutter all operations at its Lucky Bay Mine.

Buck and ore

In forex, the Oz dollar is buying US 68.9c today,

Then to commodities, all in the greenback,

Brent Crude -5%, to $73.12/barrel,

Iron Ore has risen +1.2%, today selling at $98.65 a tonne in Singapore,

Gold has kept fading, and is now ~$4,011/ounce, and,

US natgas futures up, $3.20 per gigajoule.

That’s HotCopper‘s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – happy trading today.

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