Investing.com - The Australian Stock Exchange is projected to surge as the spotlight remains on domestic and international interest rates. The three major US stock indexes remained relatively unchanged in anticipation of crucial inflation data and the commencement of the US earnings season later this week.
Yields on the US Treasury's 10-year note climbed to their highest point since November, nearing the 4.5% mark, a level that some investors consider a critical threshold that could indicate a return to the previous year's rates. The market's initial confidence in the Federal Reserve's three quarter-point rate cuts in 2024 is dwindling, with only two reductions currently favoured.
The belief in the Fed's delivery of the anticipated three quarter-point rate cuts, as stated by policymakers last month, started to wane on Friday due to robust March employment data. According to Bloomberg, swap contracts predicting Fed rate changes on Monday accounted for about 60 basis points of easing this year starting in September, a perspective that assigns less than a 50% probability to a third cut.
The sentiment reports from Westpac and NAB, set to be released at 10:30 and 11:30 respectively, will provide further insight into how Australian consumers and businesses are coping with the diminished expectations for rate cuts.
Market Highlights:
- ASX 200 Futures are up by 33 points or 0.4% to 7863.
- The Australian dollar increased by 0.4% to 66.06 US cents.
- Bitcoin saw a 3.6% rise to $US71,673.
- On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average showed a decrease of 0.03%, the S&P 500 fell by 0.04%, while the NASDAQ Composite increased by 0.03%.
- In New York, BHP (ASX:BHP) Group Ltd ADR (NYSE:BHP) rose by 3.5%, Rio Tinto ADR (NYSE:RIO) by 4.9%, and Atlassian Corp Plc (NASDAQ:TEAM) by 1%.
- Tech stocks showed mixed performance with Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) increasing by 4.9%, while Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) fell by 0.2%, Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 0.7%, and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) by 1%. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) saw a 1.4% increase, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) rose by 0.1%, while Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) fell by 1.5%.
- Spot gold decreased by 0.4% to $US2338.20/oz.
- Brent crude dipped by 0.8% to $US90.46 a barrel.
- Iron ore rose by 5.9% to $US104.10 a tonne.
- The 10-Year yield for the US was at 4.42%, Australia at 4.19%, and Germany at 2.43%.