Good morning and welcome to Week 10, where Australian shares are expected to rally somewhat after a red-filled last five days piled on the pain.
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ASX 200 futures are pointing to a 0.5% gain this morning, to 8,200 points.
That’s not to say that next trading week is going to be easy, though: While this Monday could be relatively quiet, further into Week 10, we’re going to see Trump’s Canada, Mexico, and China tariffs imposed by sometime tomorrow.
The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones all added around 1.5% after Trump and Zelenskiy met late last week; a solid bounceback after Trump actually said the words “World War 3.”
Also likely to weigh on markets is the U.S. economic data that landed after the Aussie bourse closed on Friday. It heralded a 0.2% fall in consumer spending coupled with stronger manufacturing data – all of which combines to point to “stagflation.”
The U.S. is also to open a new crypto strategic reserve, announced Sunday.
For markets to muse back home: Star Entertainment (ASX:SGR) was unable to find financing over the weekend, leaving the casino operator in limbo in Week 10.
In other company news, FBR Ltd (ASX:FBR) inked a new agreement with Liebherr-Mischtechnik to consult on Hadrian X machines in the U.S. – including deploying the key machines into truck bases and building an assembly base.
Sayona Mining (ASX:SYA) also confirmed to its shareholders it will soon become “MergeCo” with a 50/50 split for Sayona and Piedmont (ASX:PLL) investors.
More market news
Pushing in: Ukraine’s minerals are in Trump’s sights. What does this really mean?
Tough trim: Why rate cuts are bad news for the Australian economy
There’s plenty of economic data coming Down Under this week too, including the RBA’s monetary policy meeting minutes due out at 11.30am tomorrow, March 4.
We’ll also get Aussie retail sales stats for February around the same time in Sydney.
Looking at forex on Monday, the Aussie dollar is buying 62.1 US cents after another slide sparked by all Trump’s moves late last week.
To commodities, which are in the greenback,
Iron Ore has dropped 2.2% to $102 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is trading at $72,81,
Gold is trading at $2,889 per ounce, and,
US natgas futures are at $3.83 per gigajoule.
That’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre, stick with us for HotCopper’s Market Update.
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