Morning traders. Thanks loungers, especially @Ravgnome. Outlook...

Morning traders. Thanks loungers, especially @Ravgnome.


Outlook for the day: Positive after iron ore rebounds and Wall Street rallies into tonight's Federal Reserve interest rate decision.

ASX futures: up 13 points or 0.17%


Overnight themes:

• US stocks advance as the Federal Reserve starts a two-day policy meeting and investors welcome Nvidia's latest AI chip.
• The S&P 500 puts on 0.56% as investors exhibit few nerves ahead of tonight's Fed rates announcement. The Nasdaq adds 0.39%.
• The Dow leads with a rise of 0.83% as a broad rally lifts 27 out of 30 component companies. Apple, Home Depot and McDonald's set the pace.
• Nvidia gains 1.12% after unveiling an AI chip it claims could be 30 times faster than existing chips.
• Fed policy-makers gather for a meeting that is not expected to change monetary policy settings tonight, but should provide additional clues to the central bank's expectations for rate cuts. Sticky inflation data have dragged the odds on a June cut down to 59% from 69% at the start of last week.
• A retreat in Bitcoin weighs on Coinbase and miners. Other drags include AMD, Intel and Tesla.
• Energy is the pick of the sectors, rising 1.08% as oil builds on Friday's five-month high. Prices climbed last week following Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries. Brent crude lifts 0.6% to US$87.38 a barrel, the strongest settlement price since late October.
• Nine of eleven US sectors rally. Besides energy, also strong are utilities +0.92%, consumer discretionary +0.86% and industrials +0.82%.
• Iron ore rebounds strongly from multi-month lows following news of that fixed asset investment expanded 4.2% last month in China, soothing concerns about sluggish economic activity and boosting ore transaction volumes at Chinese ports. The most active ore contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange lifts 5.35%. In Singapore, ore prices rise 2.91%.
• "The rise in fixed asset investment should help support steel demand" - analysts at ANZ (per Reuters).
• Industrial and precious metals decline as the US dollar rallies into tonight's rates decision. The US Dollar Index, which measures the greenback against a basket of major currencies, climbs 0.4% to its highest in almost three weeks. Copper backs off an 11-month high on the London Metal Exchange. Gold, nickel, tin, zinc and aluminium also retreat
• "The decline today [in copper] is mostly profit taking and the dollar index strength" - Amelia Xiao Fu, head of commodity market strategy at Bank of China International (per Reuters).

Key events today:

• China rates decision - 12.15 pm AEDT
• US rates decision - tonight

S&P 500: up 29 points or 0.56%

Dow: up 320 points or 0.83%

Nasdaq: up 63 points or 0.39%

Dollar: down 0.38% to 65.32 US cents

Iron ore (Dalian): up 5.35% to US$114.87

Brent crude: up 49 US cents or 0.6% to US$87.38

Gold: down US$4.60 or 0.2% to US$2,159.70

NYSE Arca Gold Bugs: down 1.97%

Bitcoin: down 3.66% to US$64,511

Copper (LME): down 1.29% to US$8,972

Nickel (LME): down 2.52% to US$17,380

Uranium (spot price): up 0.58% to US$87

Lithium carbonate (China spot): up 0.06% to US$15,633

Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF: down 0.93%

BHP: up 1.37% (US); up 1.07% (UK)

Rio Tinto: up 0.85% (US); up 1.04% (UK)