Australian shares to open higher as Wall Street digests weak jobs data
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The news: The Australian sharemarket is set to open higher after Wall Street ended the shortened trading week mixed, as weaker-than-expected June hiring data prompted investors to scale back bets on a Federal Reserve interest rate hike this month.
The numbers: Updated at 7:47am AEST:
- ASX futures: up 52 points to 8,762 points
- Wall Street: Dow Jones up 1.14%, S&P 500 up 0.00%, Nasdaq down 0.80%
- Europe: FTSE 100 up 1.67%, CAC 40 up 1.65%, DAX up 2.16%
- Spot gold: up 2.27% to USD4,122 per ounce
- Oil prices: Brent down 1.74% to USD70.32/barrel, US WTI down 0.21% to USD68.43/bbl
- AUD: up 0.33% at 69.15 US cents
- Bitcoin: up 2.41% to USD61,527.
The context: The Nasdaq closed lower on Thursday, led by losses in chipmakers, while the S&P 500 finished little changed, although both indices still posted weekly gains. The Dow Jones rose more than 1% to a record close, extending its winning streak to a fourth consecutive week, its longest since October 2024, according to Reuters. The US market will be closed on Friday for the Independence Day holiday.
Chipmakers led the sell-off after The Information reported Anthropic is in talks with Samsung Electronics to manufacture a custom AI chip, fuelling concerns the AI spending boom that has driven Wall Street this year may be cooling. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 5.4% as investors rotated into consumer staples, utilities and healthcare stocks for a second straight session.
Elsewhere, US nonfarm payrolls showed the economy added 57,000 jobs in June, well below Reuters forecasts for an increase of 110,000. The weaker-than-expected result pointed to a cooling labour market and prompted investors to scale back expectations of a near-term Federal Reserve rate hike.
The probability of a rate hike at the September meeting fell to 55% from 64.1%, according to CME FedWatch.
