Market Open: Trump threatens to attack Iran ‘very hard,’ which has not helped stocks

At The Bell — Australian shares are following Wall Street into the red early on Thursday morning, down -0.65% in futures after Trump declared he would have to attack Iran “very hard” and said Tehran is “playing us for suckers.”

Hear from all the ASX-listed companies that were at the RIU Resources Round-Up in Sydney, right here on HotCopper.com. Over a dozen video interviews here.

Well, right now the main “suckers” Down Under feel like Aussie stock traders, because any time there’s a little green hope starts building – only for Trump and the U.S. to come back and make sure everything becomes hawkish again. Case in point today: Wall Street has dumped to nearly -2% in major indexes.

It’s not quite so bad in Europe, where the Stoxx 600 is largely flat, and London’s FTSE eked out +0.2% gains, but overall things are dour in WK24 again.

And, of course, beside all this, Trump’s quotes have made sure oil popped back to $95/barrel and, for the time being, it’s steaming higher. We have Aussie June inflation expectations at 11AM, too, so that may not help either.

No major surprise that under all this, Oz traders are looking for defence and are pivoting into staples nearly entirely across the board. A lot more on that in our HotCopper Wire podcast recording, out later today.

ASX stocks to watch

In stocks, government, military and security developer Boresight (ASX:BST) had a ripper start to life on the Oz bourse, climbing from its 20c/share float price to 32c at Wednesday close. That’s a +60% jump right on Day One.

Some investors are divided on Sigma Healthcare’s (ASX:SIG) blockbuster Boots hunt, with some suggesting the company could afford to move a whole lot more slowly. Sigma, which owns Chemist Warehouse, is pursuing a $14 billion deal to acquire U.K. health and beauty retailer Boots and expand overseas.

Elsewhere, Rob Scott, who helms Wesfarmers (ASX:WES), has become the latest to speak out against Labor’s budget tax changes. He’s warned that the update could “deter entrepreneurship and investment” Down Under.

And Northern Star (ASX:NST) today told shareholders its fielded several takeover or merger approaches over the past year because its stock price is so weak.

Buck and ore

In forex, the Oz dollar buys US 69.9c. This is the first time the Oz buck has been below 70 to the greenback in quite some time.

Then to commodities, all in the greenback,

Brent Crude is well up again, now hovering around $95 today,

Iron Ore is up +0.9%, at $101.55/tonne in Singapore,

Gold down, $4,081/ounce, and,

US natgas futures flat, ~$3.18 per gigajoule.

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

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