Market snapshot
- ASX 200 futures: +0.5% to 8,640 points
- Australian dollar: -0.1% to 66.05US cents
- Wall Street (Friday): S&P500 +0.9%, Dow +0.6%, Nasdaq +1.3%
- Europe (Friday): Dax +0.4%, FTSE +0.5%, Eurostoxx +0.4%
- Spot gold (Friday): +0.1% to $US4,338/ounce
- Brent crude (Friday): +1.1% to $US 60.47/barrel
- Iron ore (Friday): -0.4% to $US104.0/tonne
- Bitcoin: +0.3% at $US88,431
Prices current at around 7:10am AEDT
Wall Street bounces on AI rally, ASX set to rise
We may not have officially entered the so-called “Santa Rally” zone, but Wall Street enjoyed some festive cheer ahead of the shortened trading week.
All the key US indices rose led in particular by the tech sector.
The S&P 500 gained 0.9%, the Dow 0.4% and the Nasdaq 1.3%.
The optimistic sentiment was widespread.
The pan-Europe Eurostoxx 600 gained 0.4%, while the global MSCI benchmark rose 0.7% across the day.
For Europe, it marked a record close. Once again, aerospace and defence stocks were in the hottest demand.
The performance of Micron Technology in the US, which jumped 7% thanks to a broker upgrade, buoyed the somewhat wobbly AI cohort.
Nvidia picked up almost 4% and Oracle rose 6.4% after signing a binding agreement with Byte Dance, the Chinese owner of Tik Tok, to run the US operations of the social media platform.
“The return to a more optimistic tone around the AI trade is certainly helping a number of things across the board,” Rosenblatt Securities trader Michael James told Reuters.
“It was certainly helping the Nasdaq in a meaningful way yesterday and again today,” he said.
“We’re not out of the woods, but it certainly feels a lot better today than it did most of the course of the last week.”
The US dollar index rose marginally, although the Australian dollar largely held its ground.
On commodity markets, the global oil benchmark, Brent Crude rose 1.1% to $US60.47/barrel on the prospect of supply disruptions from a U.S. blockade of Venezuelan tankers.
Spot gold edged higher and silver rose 2.8% to yet another record high, hitting $US67.22/ounce
Good morning
Good morning, and welcome to another day on the ABC markets and finance blog.
Stephen Letts from ABC business team limbering up for a blow-by-blow coverage of the day’s events, where every post is hopefully a winner, but none should be construed as financial advice.
In short, it looks like the local market will start the shortened trading week on a positive note.
Futures trading is pointing to the ASX gaining around 0.5% on opening, clawing back some of the 0.9% it shed last week.
As always, the game’s afoot, so let’s get blogging.
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