Good morning and welcome to the new year! The 2025 trading season is getting off to a mixed start, with futures tipping the ASX 200 to open lower, down around 0.75% – a 61.5-point loss that gets the year off to a red start.

The Aussie market has followed overseas moves somewhat with its tipped red open; the U.S. index futures (Wall Street was shut on January 1) all shifted lower while Europe saw a mixed end to trading in its last days before the calendar turned over.

Futures in Shanghai (also halted for the holidays) were down too, more than 1.63%.

Like Australian stocks though, a down end to the year didn’t overly dent what had been a strong 2024: The Nasdaq composite in particular has gained 28.8% YTD.

(For comparison, I flagged on Tuesday the ASX had lifted 7.5% in 2024.)

Back home, there’s excitement on HotCopper forums for Weebit Nano’s (ASX:WBT) latest victory: The Israel-based semiconductor IP company has licensed its ReRAM technology to Onsemi, a tier-one supplier.

QPM Energy (ASX:QPM) has also struck early in 2024, inking an operating agreement with Carbon Logica to helm the Moranbah Power Station moving forward.

At 4.30pm Sydney time today, we’ll also hear numbers from the RBA regarding commodity prices. Expectations are that the central bank will flag a 21st consecutive month of declining prices; now down 11.8% year-on-year.

Looking at forex, the Aussie dollar is buying 61.9 US cents.

To commodities, which are in the greenback,

Iron Ore has been mostly flat at $103.61 a tonne in Singapore,

Brent Crude is trading at $74.64,

Gold is trading at $2,635 per ounce, and, 

US natgas futures have plunged 7.7% to sell at $3.63 per gigajoule. This was sparked by a pipeline from Russia through Ukraine turning off on Wednesday.

Though the shutoff has been long-expected by many considering Russia’s invasion, the January shutdown should now send shockwaves through the European energy sector and rattle prices around the world as things re-settle.

That’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre, stick with us for HotCopper’s Market Close.