Thanks afternoon crew. Nice start to the year. Positive omen for the rest of 2026? Hope so.
I'm checking out for a week. We could use a pre-market thread-starter next week, I think, but the forum will no doubt muddle through, as it always does. I'll be back on Jan 19. Til then, good trading to all.
End-of-day summary:
The share market closed little changed as heavy selling of index heavyweight Rio Tinto following confirmation of merger negotiations offset a positive session for energy producers, gold miners and supermarkets.
The ASX 200 faded to a loss of three points or 0.03% after being up as much as 42 points in the first half hour of trade.
Mining giant Rio dived 6.27% after confirming it was in discussions to absorb commodity trader and miner Glencore in a mega merger that could be worth more than US$200 billion.
A 3.4% bounce in crude prices overnight helped lift Santos and Woodside more than 2.7%. Other heavyweight gainers included Woolworths, BHP and QBE.
US stocks closed mixed overnight as a rotation out of growth stocks into value stocks lifted the Dow and weighed on the Nasdaq. The S&P 500 closed more or less flat.
