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At The Bell — Australia’s reporting season is now underway properly in Week 32, with every other company joining miners and explorers in opening their books, though escalations in the war in the Middle East may colour things. To open on Monday morning, ASX 200 futures are pointing to a 20-point, –0.3% drop early.
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The U.S. has largely got through its reporting heading into August, with six of the seven megacap tech companies sharing last week. Those updates were largely positive, and leave us questioning why Oz is so bearish today.
All three of the leading Wall Street indexes closed in the green last Friday, while Japan’s Nikkei put up a +4% boom last time it was open for trading.
Probably also worth noting Trump said the Iran bombing he called off would have been the “biggest since World War II,” but we can only take his word on that. Your call whether you actually want to or not.
I suppose traders are often cagey before reporting really gets into the swing, but there’d be plenty hoping that the hawkish stance investors are taking Down Under early fades away as we start getting quarterlies on the wire.
ASX stocks to watch
Now, on that front, we get started with companies like Charter Hall (ASX:CHC) and Credit Corp (ASX:CCP), before big-hitters like ResMed (ASX:RMD), REA Group (ASX:REA), and Pinnacle (ASX:PNI) pop up this week.
Light & Wonder (ASX:LNW), Beach (ASX:BPT), AMP (ASX:AMP), Block (ASX:XYZ), James Hardie (ASX:JHX), and Avita (ASX:AVH) are also on WK32’s docket.
And in early updates, tech cluster Vista Group (ASX:VGL) has told shareholders it has posted a 25% drop in net profit over the six months to June 30.
Elsewhere, Westpac (ASX:WBC) has just wrapped up the RAMS sale. Pepper Money (ASX:PPM), PIMCO funds, and accounts managed by global private equity giant KKR are in the consortium buying the mortgage portfolio.
The ACCC is watching fuel suppliers “like a hawk” after the excise ended Sunday, too.
Buck and ore
In forex, the Oz dollar is buying US 70.4c today,
Then to commodities, all in the greenback,
Brent Crude back down around -5%, now selling at $83.36/barrel,
Iron Ore is up +0.2%, to $95.80 a tonne in Singapore,
Gold today $4,048/ounce, and,
US natgas futures up, $2.75 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper‘s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – happy trading today.
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