Good morning and welcome to the midpoint of the trading week.
The ASX200 is set to rise around a quarter of a percent per market futures at 8.30am AEST.
The big local catalyst to watch today will be the latest monthly Consumer Price Index, or CPI, inflation data from the ABS.
Yesterday, the RBA kept interest rates on hold at 4.35% but bank chief Michele Bullock said the board did not “explicitly” consider hiking rates.
Cost of living pressure relief spending from government is expected to see energy inflation decrease, though, government spending outright complicates the price index.
TD Securities expect a 2.9% year-on-year read for August; NAB expect 2.7%.
In forex, the Aussie is nearly at 69 US cents, a record high year to date, after Chinese stimulus packages were announced yesterday. Of course, nearly a dozen Chinese stimulus packages have been declared this year already – we’ll need to see what actually happens in a week on week basis.
Notably, the Chinese central bank will provide money to Chinese brokers to buy Chinese stocks.
In Commodities which are in USD,
Iron ore jumped to US$95/tonne in Singapore on the back of renewed China optimism,
Brent Crude jumped to US$75 per barrel on the same optimism, as well as new prospects of a larger Middle Eastern war,
Gold has kept surging to US$2,657 per ounce, and,
US natgas is at $2.57 per gigajoule.
That’s Market Open, I’m Jonathon Davidson, we’ll be with you later in the day for a trading update.
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