The local stock market looks to end the week on a high, with futures pointing to a gain of more than .6 of a per cent after Wall Street finally had a better run as oil prices dropped back by nearly 2 per cent.
All major US indexes closed up, the Nasdaq finished .83 per cent ahead, the S&P 500 gained nearly .6 of a per cent and the Dow Jones, .35 of a per cent. That was despite the looming threat of Government shutdowns starting next week and ahead of key personal expenditure data which’ll be released tonight.
Tesla is being sued by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly allowing persistent racial harassment of employees from 2015. It’s alleged workers at Tesla’s California factory endured racial abuse, stereotyping, and racial slurs. Tesla has shed six per cent over the past week.
Social media platform Meta is up two per cent after launching AI-persona chatbots to drive engagement on its platforms.
Semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technologies dropped 4.4 per cent on predictions it’ll reveal bigger losses than expected. And software company Accenture also slipped more than four per cent as it fell short of targets.
This evening there’ll also be the release of inflation figures from Europe.
Well ahead of today’s trading back home, there was a whole lot of Australian Bureau of Statistics data that landed yesterday to assess, which’ll be factored in ahead of next Tuesday’s interest rates decision. In particular, retail sales rose by less than what had been expected last month. Today Australian Housing Credit data will follow.
The Aussie dollar is buying 64 US cents, iron ore is buying $120.84 a tonne, Crude oil has slipped nearly two per cent to just below $92, gold is half a per cent down trading at $1865 and natural gas is up one and a half per cent at $2.94.
That’s Market Open for this Friday. We’ll be back mid-session with a trade update.