Day trading pre-market open October 3

Morning traders. Thanks loungers, especially @Ravgnome and @Patterns.



Outlook for the day: The ASX 200 looks set to open at its weakest in more than six months ahead of this afternoon's interest rate decision. A surging greenback smacks dollar-denominated commodity prices and the Australian dollar wilts as Wall Street finishes mixed.

ASX futures: down 96 points or 1.36%


Overnight themes:

• Wall Street's main indices close mixed as a stop-gap bill to fund the federal government boosts treasury yields and the greenback.
• The Russell 2000 index of small caps turns negative for 2023, falling 1.8%.
• The yield on 10-year US treasuries climbs 10 basis points to 4.68% as investors dump havens after Congress passes a temporary funding measure to avert a government shutdown.
• Fed Governor Michelle Bowman says she supports another rate hike if progress on bringing down inflation stalls or takes too long. She says rising energy prices threaten to undo some of the progress made to date.
• The most rate-sensitive US sectors finish mixed. Utilities plunges 4.72% to a three-year low. Also notably weak are energy (-1.91%), real estate (-1.75% and materials (-1.31%). The only gainers are traditional growth sectors: tech, comms and consumer discretionary.
• The greenback flies to a 10-month high. The Australian dollar cops a smackdown ahead of this afternoon's Reserve Bank interest rate announcement. The central bank is tipped to leave benchmark rates on hold at 4.1%. The Aussie falls more than 1%.
• A surge in the US dollar weighs on metals. Gold drops to a seven-month low. Copper falls almost 2.5% towards the US$8,000 level.
• Oil retreats from "overbought" conditions after pushing towards US$100 a barrel last week. Both Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate gained more than 25% last quarter.
• “[Oil] has become technically overbought on several measures, and a correction appears to be starting with an overnight bounce fading and the price falling under its own weight for the moment” - Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at SIA Wealth management.

Key events today:

• Monthly building approvals, job ads - 11.30 am AEDT
• RBA interest rate decision - 2.30 pm (expected: hold at 4.1%)
• US job openings - tonight

S&P 500: up less than 1 point or 0.01%

Dow: down 74 points or 0.22%

Nasdaq: up 88 points or 0.67%

Dollar: down 1.13% to 63.64 US cents

Iron ore (Dalian): untraded at US$116.64 (China Golden Week holiday)

Brent crude: down US$1.49 or 1.6% to US$90.71

Gold: down US$18.90 or 1% to US$1,847.20

NYSE Arca Gold Bugs: down 3.79% (11-month low)

Copper (LME): down 2.48% to US$8,065

Nickel (LME): up 0.72% to US$18,800

Lithium carbonate (China spot): untraded at US$23,538 (China Golden Week holiday)

Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF: down 1.9%

BHP: down 1.71% (US); down 1.26% (UK)

Rio Tinto: down 1.49% (US); down 1.04% (UK)