The ASX enjoyed another morning in the green, marking the third straight day of gains down under.
The materials sector propped up the win, with iron ore, gold and lithium stocks among the best performers come midday.
The benchmark index is up 0.71 per cent at noon, breaking past the 7,000 point barrier, while the All Ords is trading 0.6 per cent higher.
With the midterm elections in full swing, investors took Wall Street through another positive session overnight.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq notched a 0.6 per cent gain, while the Dow finished up 1.02 per cent.
Looking at commodities now — oil prices are on the fritz as China’s rising Covid cases and supply risks curb investor appetite.
Gold gave up its gains this morning to fetch $1,713 US dollars an ounce, while iron ore futures jumped 2.3 per cent.
And digital gold is in the red today after crypto exchange Binance announced it would bail out rival FTX Trading.
Bitcoin dropped as much as 14 per cent and Ethereum was trading 16 per cent lower.
Checking in with today’s top stories, criminals have published Medibank customer data on the dark web.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said today that recent data breaches represented “a huge wakeup call” for corporate Australia.
At the top end of town, Big Four bank NAB delivered an 8.3 per cent lift in cash earnings but dropped 1.8 per cent following its full-year report.
Among the small caps today, Alicanto Minerals is up 36 per cent after buying the Falun copper-gold-zinc mine in Sweden.
Meeka Metals jumped 1.8 per cent after it discovered a new gold lode, and Brookside Energy rose 8.3 per cent thanks to a new drill program at the Juanita oil and gas well.