Australian shares are heading towards a soft rise at open on Friday, with early ASX 200 futures pointing to Week 33 closing out with a 16-point advance, up +0.17%, on investors seemingly happy to just let the week fade away.
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It’s a tepid end to what has, honestly, been a pretty tepid trading week – we did have the Reserve Bank’s rates chop on Tuesday, but that was nearly entirely priced in and only Bullock’s dovish quotes moved anything.
It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster over in the U.S., where the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite both bowled over new records, but that green wave only really lapped at Australian shores through most of Thursday’s session.
Same again too, with a flat outlook on Wall Street (the S&P is up +0.03%; the Dow Jones is down -0.02%), barely impacting sentiments. The same could be said for the flat FTSE. Only the Nikkei had a big swing: It’s down -1.45% today.
And earnings season has rolled on through Week 33 in Oz, too, but there’s been no meteoric shocks through all the big FY25 reports already shared.
On that note, HealthCo (ASX:HCW) has reported funds from operations came in at 6.6c per unit (or $36.5 million) through FY25. The REIT did, however, book $89.3 million in losses; revenue fell by -17%, to $61.5 million.
Also in earnings – Cochlear (ASX:COH) expects to post an 11% to 17% increase in underlying profits through 2026 on higher device sales.
In a similar vein, eyes will be on telecom giant Telstra (ASX:TLS) after investors decided weaker mobile phone customer growth wasn’t enough to offset a +31% jump in annual profits or a new $1 billion buyback scheme.
Property group Mirvac (ASX:MGR) is also releasing its earnings this morning.
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Looking at forex, the Aussie dollar buys 64.9 US cents.
And to commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore has lost -1.12% to end the week, selling at $102.35 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is at $66.86,
Gold is down, selling at $3,338 per ounce, and,
US natgas futures have recovered +0.25%, to $2.83 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – good luck and happy trading.
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