ASX today – Australian shares are looking likely to head into Week 43’s closing bell with a soft upswing, with futures pointing to a 10-point gain this morning after Trump said he’ll be meeting Xi Jinping as soon as next week.
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The hopes there – and why it’s keeping many dovish – is mainly due to the fact the two meeting means there’s unlikely to be a full-blown trade war.
Gold’s bounce has also helped, as did bitcoin firming, and oil surging after the U.S. President also declared he’d be imposing heavy sanctions on the Russian companies that “fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” Rosneft and Lukoil.
Looking a little deeper into gold: Commodity traders have been gleefully rubbing their hands through these last few days as retail investors poured out of the precious metal as quickly as they’d piled in. The world’s hottest asset remains red-hot and has already rallied back to US$4,137 an ounce.
That has set up gold companies to potentially net back some W43 losses.
ASX stocks to watch
There, we’ll be watching several stocks that were battered in the exodus, including Vault Minerals (ASX:VAU), New Murchison Gold (ASX:NMG), and blue-chips Evolution (ASX:EVN) and Northern Star (ASX:NST).
Geneis Minerals (ASX:GMD) shared such a good quarterly report that it actually added +1.3% through the dip; that may be another that closes out strong.
Elsewhere, Fortescue Metals (ASX:FMG) is celebrating shipping a record amount of iron ore through the financial year’s first stanza, which helped offset the Oz exporter’s struggling green technology investments.
In a similar vein, petroleum producer Woodside Energy (ASX:WDS) has sold off stakes in its Louisiana liquefied natural gas export project, as well as a critical pipeline that connects to the site, in a $3.5 billion deal late this week.
And, ASX Ltd (ASX:ASX) boss David Clarke said the culture fix plans the bourse operator has cooked up “cannot fail” at yesterday’s general meeting.
Quarterlies today include Newmont (ASX:NEM), Pilbara (ASX:PLS), and more.
Buck and ore
Now – in forex, the Oz dollar buys 65.1 U.S. cents.
Looking at commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore has gained +0.6%, to $104.80 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude has popped +5.3%, to $65.91/bbl,
Gold is, as noted, recovering again, and is today $4,136 an ounce, and,
US natgas futures dumped -4.71%, to $3.28 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – good luck, happy trading.
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