Australian shares are headed towards a green open, with ASX 200 futures predicting a +0.54% advance, to around 8,620 points, after Wall Street finished strong on Donald Trump’s surprise Jerome Powell backing.
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U.S. securities dipped on reports Trump was moving to sack the Federal Reserve chairman, before mostly recovering when the President denied the claims.
Trump was staunch in denial, saying he “wasn’t planning on doing anything.”
It doesn’t mean Powell is safe, but with his ousting tipped to be quite the “high impact” event for global markets, Trump may well be cowed for the time being.
Between Trump’s endless posturing over firing Powell – which now seems to be the latest “TACO” candidate – and EU’s trade chief landing in Washington for trade talks, the Dow Jones was helped +0.5% higher. The S&P added +0.32%.
Back home, West Cobar Metals (ASX:WC1) excites on HotCopper forums early after spruiking new copper and antimony targets at Bulla Park. The explorer is now concentrating on these “major zones of untested, thick mineralisation.”
Great Divide Mining (ASX:GDM) is this week celebrating a crucial mine milestone too, pouring first gold at Challenger in a “rapid” two-year turnaround.
More quarterly reports are rolling in, with Alcoa Corporation (ASX:AAI), Gold Road Resources (ASX:GOR), Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD), Santos (ASX:STO), and Yancoal Australia (ASX:YAL) all on the docket this Thursday.
We’ll finally get some Oz stats today too, with labour force data before midday.
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Looking at forex, the Aussie dollar is 65.2 US cents.
To commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore is up around +0.99% today at $99.90 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is at $68.68,
Gold is at $3,353 per ounce, and,
US natgas futures are at $3.55 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – good luck and happy trading.
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