The ASX made marginal progress yesterday that may be followed up by further wins today, with ASX Futures pointing to a 22-point or 0.3% uptick in early trading as of 8:30 this morning.
Falling iron ore futures are likely to continue to put pressure on mining stocks although falling oil futures and climbing gold futures may help counterbalance the bearish sentiment.
Today will see data on Australian payroll and overseas arrivals and departures issued, and shares of Breville, Eagers Automotive, Inghams, Regis Healthcare, Southern Cross Media and TPG Telecom all trade ex-dividend.
US and European markets
What happened overnight? (source: Commsec)
US tech stocks took a number of hits last night; lifting US treasury yields applied pressure to the rate-sensitive megacap stocks of Nvidia, Meta and Apple, which fell between 0.8% and 1.2%.
Chip makers AMD and Micron Technology both slid 3% and Intel shed 4.4% after a report that the Pentagon has pulled out of a $2.5 billion planned chip grant to the company.
Tesla wasn’t spared, dipping 4.5% after Wells Fargo downgraded the EV stock to “underweight”.
In other areas of the market, discount chain store Dollar Tree closed nearly 1,000 stores after a net loss in the last quarter, shaving 14.2% off its stock. McDonalds also dropped 3.9% on announcing a potential international sales drop in the current quarter.
On the greener side of things, American multinational conglomerate 3M gained 5.4% on a lift in its first quarter earnings outlook and mining company Freeport-McMoRan lifted 7.6% after Chinese copper smelters made capacity cuts.
The Dow Jones was the sole US index to rise overnight, adding 38 points or 0.1% as the Nasdaq fell 88 points or 0.5% and the S&P500 slid 0.2%
In Europe, the bourses did better. Retail stocks climbed 3.3% – online fashion retailer Zalando and Zara-owner Inditex led the pack, adding as much as 18.9% to stock prices on strong quarterly results.
The FTSE300 touched a new record high on a 0.2% lift, while the FTSE100 touched a new nine-month high with a 0.3% lift.
British GDP increased 0.2% in January, matching surveyed expectations.
Currencies and commodities
The US Dollar faltered overnight, falling against other major currencies.
The Euro rose from US$1.0918 to near US$1.0945 at the US close, the Aussie from US66.02 cents to near US66.20 cents and the Japanese Yen firmed from 148.02 yen per US Dollar to near JPY147.80 at the US close.
Oil rose 2% overnight to a four-month high on falling US crude inventories, a bigger-than-expected drop in US gasoline stocks, and potential supply disruptions after Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries.
Compounding the upward momentum, US energy firms pulled 1.5 million barrels of crude from inventories despite a forecast of a 1.3-million-barrel increase.
Brent crude rose by US$2.11 or 2.6% to US$84.03 a barrel. US Nymex gained US$2.16 or 2.8% to US$79.72 a barrel.
Base metals were mixed on Wednesday. Copper Futures jumped 3.2% to an 11-month high as Chinese smelters reduced capacity, and aluminium futures slid 0.2%, alongside iron which slid US$1.38 or 1.2% to US$111.77 a tonne.
On Wednesday, the gold futures price rose by US$14.70 or 0.7% to US$2,180.80 an ounce. Spot gold was trading near US$2,173 an ounce at the US close.
On the small cap front
The ASX Small Ordinaries fell just 1.3 points or 0.04% yesterday, compared to a small 0.17% lift for the ASX200.
You can read about the following and more throughout the day on our website.
- Torque Metals Ltd (ASX:TOR) hits broad intervals of high-grade lithium at New Dawn, collectively up to 28.8 metres thick and up to 3.38% lithium oxide.
- Cyprium Metals Ltd (ASX:CYM, OTC:CYPMF) has updated the Nifty Copper Mine’s mineral resource estimate to 119 million tonnes at 0.84% copper for 1 million tonnes of contained copper.
- Race Oncology Ltd (ASX:RAC, OTC:RAONF) welcomes international cardiometabolic expert, Associate Professor Erin Howden to its Scientific Advisory Board.
- Lithium Universe Ltd (ASX:LU7, OTC:ESMAF) launches a share purchase plan to raise up to $3 million to fund engineering studies and working capital.
- Infinity Lithium Corporation Ltd (ASX:INF) has secured additional long-term leases over the land at San José which extends areas secured for the proposed lithium processing facility.