Australian shares open higher as miners rally; Super Retail slides after CEO sacking
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More news: Australian shares lifted at the open as mining stocks led gains across the ASX 200. The benchmark index was up 26.4 points, or 0.30%, to 8,879.4 at 10:30am AEST, with seven of the 11 sectoral indices in positive territory.
Miners were up 1.3%, as iron ore majors Champion Iron (+4.3%), Fortescue (+1.7%), Rio Tinto (+1.6%) and BHP (+1.1%) all gained. Coal miners New Hope (+4.5%) and Whitehaven (+3.3%) were also higher, while uranium producers Deep Yellow (+7.1%) and Boss Energy (+7%) were the two top performers on the ASX 200.
Super Retail led losses, tumbling 4.6%, after the Rebel owner fired its managing director and CEO Anthony Heraghty over his relationship with the company’s former chief human resources officer.
Australian shares to lift as Tesla paces Wall Street rally
The news: Australian shares are poised to rise this morning after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed sharply higher overnight, as investors await the US Federal Reserve's next policy meeting this week.
The numbers: Updated at 7:30am AEST:
- ASX futures: up 41 points, or 0.46%, to 8,889
- Wall Street: Dow Jones up 0.11%, S&P 500 up 0.47% and Nasdaq up 0.94%
- Europe: CAC 40 up 0.92%, DAX up 0.21% and FTSE 100 down 0.07%
- Spot gold: up 0.98% to USD3,679 per ounce
- Oil prices: Brent up 0.04% USD67.47/bbl and US WTI up 0.94% to USD63.28/bbl
- AUD: up 0.31% to 66.68 US cents
- Bitcoin: up 0.08% to USD115,466.
The context: Among the big winners on Wall Street last night were tech megacaps Tesla and Alphabet, which added 3.6% and 2.8% respectively.
Tesla shares were buoyed after CEO Elon Musk bought up nearly USD1 billion in company stock, while Alphabet's rally saw the Google parent reach a fresh record high and top USD3 trillion in market capitalisation.
The Federal Reserve's policy meeting kicks off on Tuesday, with a decision on interest rates expected on Wednesday (Thursday AEST). Investors are widely expecting a 25-basis-point cut.
