Markets were higher overall last night. Big cap tech stocks led Wall Street to new heights and the automobile sector’s recovery in Europe buoyed shares as oil pressures from geopolitical conflict in the Middle East and Chinese stimulus eased.
The ASX looks set to follow US markets up – as it often does – with ASX Futures pointing to a 0.4% or 33-point gain in early trading.
US and European markets
Tech stocks jumped 1% led by Apple’s 1.7% gain. Despite reporting strong third-quarter sales and almost touching an all-time high during trading, Nvidia slipped 0.18% – expectations for the Magnificent 7 favourite are sky-high at present.
Google parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) also lost ground today, shedding 1.59% as the Department of Justice prepares its anti-trust case proposal against the search engine behemoth.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) also fell 1.4% as investors expressed doubt about the company’s imminent robotaxi lanch.
Super Micro Computers went the other way, gaining 4.3%. The PHLX semiconductor index rose 1.06%.
The financials sector lifted 0.9% ahead of the US earnings season and Norwegian Cruise Line jumped 10.9% as Citi upgraded the stock from neutral to buy on expected earnings and margin expansion.
Rio Tinto’s plans to acquire Arcadium Lithium rocketed the lithium miner’s shares up 30.9% as the Australian miner attached a US$6.7 billion price tag to the buy.
The beleaguered Boeing (NYSE:BA) Airlines dropped a further 3.4% as talks with its key manufacturing union broke down.
Overall, the Nasdaq lifted 109 points or 0.6%, the Dow 432 points or 1% and the S&P500 0.7% – the latter two closed at record highs.
In Europe, a 1% lift in automobile stocks buoyed the greater market. Continental lifted 7.2% on improved profitability forecasts for its automotive business in the third quarter.
Banks pushed in the other direction, shedding 0.3% as ING shed 2.5% on Deutsche Bank (ETR:DBKGn) downgrading the bank to a “hold” and describing 2024 as the peak for capital returns and share buybacks.
The FTSE300 lifted 0.7% and the FTSE100 gained 0.7% as Real Estate shares gained 0.9%.
Currencies and commodities
The US dollar gained in trade overnight. The Euro slipped from US$1.0975 to near US$1.0940, the Aussie from US67.60 cents to near US67.10 cents and the Yen from 148.27 yen per US dollar to near JPY149.35 at the US close.
Oil prices continued to fall as US crude inventories jumped by 5.8 million barrels compared to the 2-million-barrel rise predicted, applying more downward pressure after limited stimulus measures from China failed to maintain demand.
Brent crude fell by US60 cents or 0.8% to US$76.58 a barrel and US Nymex dipped US33 cents or 0.4% to US$73.24 a barrel.
Metal prices were also weakened by under-sized Chinese stimulus measures. Both copper and aluminium futures fell 1.3%.
Iron ore resisted the pessimism, gaining US23 cents or 0.2% to US$106.53 a tonne on reports more Chinese fiscal stimulus may be on the cards for Saturday.
Gold fell US$9.40 or 0.4% to US$2,626 an ounce, the sixth day of falls, as the Fed indicated US rate cuts wouldn’t be quite as swift as first expected.
Spot gold was trading near US$2,607 an ounce at the US close.
On the small cap front
The ASX Small Ordinaries lifted 0.19% yesterday, beating out the ASX200’s 0.13% gain.
You can read about the following and more throughout the day on our website.