Live: Wall Street hits new record highs but ASX likely to open flat
Euphoria over AI profits have boosted Wall Street's tech stocks, driving the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new record highs.
After rising for the past three days, the Australian share market is on track to start its day relatively flat. Follow live.
Disclaimer: this blog is not intended as investment advice.
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Market snapshot
By David Chau
By David Chau
- ASX futures: flat at 8,765 points
- ASX 200 (Tuesday close): +0.6% at 8,736 points
- Australian dollar: +0.2% at 69.8 US cents
- Wall Street: Dow (+0.5%), S&P 500 (+0.6%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%)
- Europe: DAX (+0.8%), FTSE (+0.4%), Stoxx 600 (+0.5%)
- Spot gold: +0.7% to $US4,167/ounce
- Oil (Brent futures): +0.7% at $US100.97/barrel
- Iron ore: -0.2% to $US91.10/tonne
- Bitcoin: -0.2% to $US85,600
- 10-year bonds: US 5.28%, Australia 5.39%
Prices current at around 7:20am AEDT
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Key Event
The RBA and the inflation myth. What many people don't get about price hikes
By David Chau
By David Chau
The Reserve Bank does not want consumer prices to come down, but to rise more slowly.
It's a common misunderstanding that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is responsible for, due to the confusing way in which it presents the inflation data every month.
In recent days, a video has done the rounds on social media of someone asking for help to understand what the RBA is up to. They said:
"If inflation means that prices are higher, does the RBA expect businesses to start reducing prices to make inflation decrease?
"Because I don't see businesses ever reducing prices. I've never seen a company say that they'll permanently reduce their prices.
"So how does inflation actually get fixed?"
That's a great question. And a perfect example of how a lot of people don't understand that falling inflation means prices going up, but at a slower rate.
For more on this "myth busting", I can certainly recommend this column by my colleague Gareth Hutchens:
Key Event
Wall Street hits new record highs, ASX likely to drift along ...
By David Chau
By David Chau
Despite new record highs on Wall Street overnight, driven by AI enthusiasm, the Australian share market is likely to have a quiet start to the day.
ASX futures are flat, which suggests there might not be much movement, up or down, when the local trading day begins.
The Australian dollar rose slightly to 69.8 US cents.
What happened overnight?
On oil markets, Brent crude futures rose 0.7% to $US101.06 per barrel, which is lower than it's been these past couple of weeks.
Supply worries eased after the Group of Seven (G7) countries reached an agreement to release emergency diesel and crude stockpiles.
The not-as-high-as-before oil price led to US government bond yields, or borrowing costs, falling slightly as concerns about high inflation eased.
And that relief pushed the benchmark S&P 500 to its highest level ever, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite hit a new record high for its third straight day.
When oil prices stabilise or move lower, "that causes yields to move down because there's less anxiety about energy-driven inflation, which in turn is helping lift stocks higher," said Oliver Pursche, senior vice president at Wealthspire Advisors in New York.
At the closing bell, the S&P 500 gained 0.6% to 7,820 points, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.5%, to 27,605 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up 0.5%, to 51,532 points.
One of the best performing stocks was Marvell Technology, which climbed 5.8% after the chip designer lifted its revenue forecast for 2028 due to strong demand for its data center chips.
Meanwhile, chipmaker AMD gained 2.8% after CEO Lisa Su said the company planned to substantially increase chip supply this financial year to meet booming AI demand.
Anyway, please grab a coffee, tea, or whatever you like to have in the morning, and I'll be back with more updates shortly!
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