Market Open: US-Iran war escalation, Trump’s latest tariffs lead ASX futures into Friday drop

At The Bell — The Australian stock market will fall -0.5% on Friday morning, led into the red by renewed U.S.-Iran tensions, oil back above US$100/barrel, and Donald Trump slapping 10% to 12.5% tariffs on some sixty countries. I’ll let you all guess where Australia now falls in that (albeit small) percentage range.

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To the latter first: Those fresh U.S. tariffs will take effect at 2.01pm (AEST) today, and – at least for now – are considered a temporary measure.

Trump is trying to force through his original tariffs from “Liberation Day” in CY25, but the Supreme Court has been blocking them, so he decided every country should get something while they waited. Oz at 12.5%, of course.

The other two headliners are intertwined, with U.S.-Iran hostilities pushing Brent crude back above $100 for the first time in several months. Early expectations there are that peace is no longer a viable option in the Middle East for Trump and his advisors, especially after the latest Strait of Hormuz closure.

S&P Global will be sharing early June composite PMI today, too.

ASX stocks to watch

Origin Energy (ASX:ORG) has reportedly “settled everything” with the self-styled hacker that has been holding the electricity and gas retailer hostage. The alleged hacker told The Australian on Thursday they would not proceed with their threat to leak customer data in 14 days. ORG actually up +1.1% this week.

Elsewhere, Macquarie Group (ASX:MGQ) CEO Shemara Wikramanayake has said she’ll step down from the top job in November. She will be replaced by the group’s banking and financial services chief, Greg Ward.

Mount Hope (ASX:MHM) today reported “excellent” hits from its maiden Phase 1 metallurgical testwork at the Mt Solitary prospect in the Cobar Basin. Early tests “returned coarse, visible free gold across all sizes.”

Finally, SaaS-for-insurance company Monvia is floating today under ticker “MNV.” The tech company is looking for $17.5M and will arrive at midday.

And speaking of floats, Ceretas (ASX:CTS) enjoyed a +132% boom on day one.

Buck and ore

In forex, the Oz dollar is buying US 69.6c today,

Then to commodities, all in the greenback,

Brent Crude is back above triple digits, $100.85/barrel,

Iron Ore has bounced +1%, up to $98.10 a tonne in Singapore,

Gold today $4,053/ounce, and,

US natgas futures down, $2.91 per gigajoule.

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

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