As Wall St extended its losses overnight, so too will the ASX decline.
ASX futures were down 21 points or 0.3% near 8am AEDT.
On the small cap front, the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries (XSO) finished 2.05% lower to 2,874.30. Over the past five days, it has dipped 0.53%.
While it has been a slow start to 2024 across markets, deputy chief markets economist at Capital Economics Jonas Goltermann said investors should stay calm noting that a “period of consolidation was always likely” after the year-end rally.
Looking at Australia in particular, stocks gained an impressive 7.4% in the month of December – their best performance since November 2020.
“The second potential explanation for weaker asset prices is that the risks around the outlook may look a bit less favourable to many market participants than in the immediate aftermath of the last round of major central bank meetings in mid-December.”
Investors are also factoring in Federal Reserve minutes, which suggest it could be a while before we see rate cuts.
“While risks to growth and inflation have come into better balance, they are still highly attentive to inflation risks and see risk to rates staying at current levels for longer than anticipated. We continue to expect the Fed to deliver the first cut in June,” Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) noted.
What happened overnight?
Indices were down, foreign currencies were also lower while commodities were mixed.
Foreign indices
- Dow Jones finished at 37,430.19 down 0.76%.
- NASDAQ finished at 14,592.21 down 1.18%.
- Shanghai Comp. finished at 2,967.25 up 0.17%.
- Nikkei 225 finished at 33,464.17 with no change.
- Hang Seng finished at 16,646.41 down 0.85%.
- S&P 500 finished at 4,704.81 down 0.80%.
Commodities
- Brent Crude (bbl) finished at 78.39 up 3.29%.
- Gold (toz) finished at 2,049.60 down 1.15%.
- Silver (toz) finished at 23.20 down 3.14%.
- WTI Crude (bbl) finished at 73.02 up 3.75%.
- Copper (lbs) finished at 3.87 down 0.22%.
Currencies
The AUD/USD dropped to a nine-day low of 0.6701 and extended its losses to four straight days, courtesy of broad USD strength across the board.
- US Dollar finished at 0.6726 down 0.04%.
- Euro finished at 0.6161 down 0.04%.
- British Pound finished at 0.5310 down 0.10%.
- New Zealand Dollar finished at 1.0773 down 0.02%.
- Japanese Yen finished at 96.3350 down 0.12%.
- Chinese Yuan finished at 4.7794 up 0.01%.
- Hong Kong Dollar finished at 5.2515 down 0.07%.