While investors are continuing to prep for Thursday morning’s Federal Reserve rate decision, a new all-time high for the S&P 500 will see many traders now throw caution to the wind and get in on the latest green wave.
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Mega gains for Tesla and Google couldn’t be ignored, apparently, and so the S&P duly ticked up its 25th record close for CY25. The Nasdaq composite was up too, gaining +0.9%, while the Dow Jones ended mixed.
It slightly defies the bearish prep traders had been working on early in Week 38 – or it could still be the impending Fed trim being priced in early.
Either way, Australia is following suit: The ASX 200 dipped yesterday, but with U.S. stocks mostly up on the board – especially the S&P, which cracked 6,600 overnight – futures have turned to a +0.4% gain today.
While we’ve hovered below the 9,000-point mark again for some weeks now, this could be the push the bourse needs to get back to those heady levels.
Leaving the futures guessing game behind, though, we’ll look at company news.
ASX stocks to watch
Top billed in headlines is Canva, which has said it won’t list on the ASX to avoid “double the work.” The design software company is still eyeing a Nasdaq IPO.
CSL (ASX:CSL) is investing $760M in Dutch biotech VarmX, with the funding going towards VarmX’s next trials for a bleeding disorder treatment. The September deal includes an option for CSL to buy the private company.
Elsewhere: Bourse operator ASX’s (ASX:ASX) CEO, Helen Lofthouse, has been accused of bullying the company’s former head of trading technology, who “repeatedly warned the exchange was in breach of obligations.”
And yesterday’s trading day saw a surge in the lithium sector. While HotCopper forum users were very excited, questions turn to whether it runs on.
Top winners there were forum favourites like Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS), up +9%, and Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR), up +6.3%. No guarantee that rolls on into Tuesday, though Oz traders do love lithium rallies.
Buck and ore
Now – in forex, the Aussie buck buys 66.7c on the U.S. dollar.
Over in commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore is in the red by -0.25%, selling at $105.70 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is at $67.44/Bbl,
Gold just keeps trucking, selling at $3,683, and,
US natgas futures are up +0.7%, to $2.97 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper’s ASX Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – good luck, happy trading.
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