Australian shares surge at the open; Qube rockets on Macquarie bid
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More news: Australian shares opened sharply higher, tracking a rally on Wall Street on Friday, with tech stocks leading gains.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was up 88.2 points, or 1.05%, to 8,504.7 at 10:30am AEDT. 10 of the 11 sectoral indices were in positive territory.
Tech stocks climbed 2.5%, with WiseTech (+3.7%), Life360 (+2.6%) and Xero (+1.8%) among the top performers.
Logistics group Qube rocketed 18.9% after receiving a $11.6 billion takeover offer by Macquarie Asset Management.
Embattled defence tech company DroneShield was the worst performer on the ASX 200, sliding 3.5% after responding to a raft of media scrutiny around the selldown of shares by three of its directors.
Australian shares to open higher after rate cut hopes spur Wall St rally
The news: Australian shares are set to climb this morning after Wall Street rallied on Friday, driven by renewed expectations for a December rate cut in the US.
The numbers: Updated at 7:30am AEDT:
- ASX futures: up 92 points, or 1.09%, to 8,519
- Wall Street: Dow Jones up 1.08%, S&P 500 up 0.98% and Nasdaq up 0.88%
- Europe: CAC 40 up 0.02%, DAX down 0.80% and FTSE 100 up 0.13%
- Spot gold: down 0.32% to USD4,064 per ounce
- Oil prices: Brent down 1.29% to USD62.56/bbl and US WTI down 1.59% to USD58.06/bbl
- AUD: up 0.25% at 64.63 US cents
- Bitcoin: up 3.55% to USD87,647.
The context: US stocks advanced on Friday after a volatile week of trading, as New York Fed president John Williams said he sees room for another rate cut "in the near term" as labor conditions show signs of weakening.
In the local market, traders will await Wednesday's monthly consumer price index report. Investors will also monitor this week's annual general meetings from Pro Medicus (Monday), Monadelphous (Tuesday), Star Entertainment (Tuesday), Ramsay Health Care (Tuesday), Ramelius Resources (Tuesday), Pilbara Minerals (Tuesday), Lynas Rare Earths (Wednesday), Harvey Norman (Wednesday), Liontown Resources (Wednesday), NRW Holdings (Thursday), Centuria Capital Group (Friday), Bank of Queensland (Friday) and Premier Investments (Friday).
The source: Bloomberg
