ASX opens higher as BHP, gold miners surge; Life360 retreats
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More news: Australian shares jumped at the open, tracking strong gains on Wall Street overnight, with all but one of the 11 sectoral indices starting in positive territory.
The benchmark ASX 200 index was up 80.2 points, or 0.91%, to 8,940.3 at 10:30am AEDT.
Miners (+1.8%) formed the top performing segment, with iron ore majors BHP (+2.8%), Rio Tinto (+1.7%) and Fortescue (+1.3%) rallying.
Gold producers were also higher, with Resolute Mining (+8.8%) leading ASX 200 gains, as gold prices hit record highs overnight.
Meanwhile, app developer Life360 (-9.4%) was the worst performer, pulling back from a 27% jump on Friday.
Australian shares to rise as Wall St rallies before megacap earnings, Fed meeting
The news: Australian shares are set to lift at the open as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq extended a four-day rally on Wall Street.
The numbers: Updated at 7:30am AEDT:
- ASX futures: up 65 points, or 0.73% to 8,935.
- Wall Street: Dow Jones up 0.72%, S&P 500 up 0.65% and the Nasdaq up 0.58%.
- Europe: CAC 40 down 0.15%, DAX up 0.13% and FTSE 100 up 0.05%.
- Spot gold: up 1.23% to USD5,048 per ounce.
- Oil prices: Brent down 0.60% to USD65.49/bbl and US WTI down 0.77% to USD60.60/bbl.
- AUD: up 0.33% at 69.22 US cents.
- Bitcoin: up 1.44% to USD87,816.
The context: Wall Street's three main indices climbed ahead of a flurry of megacap earnings this week, including from Apple (+3.3%), Meta (+2.2%), Microsoft (+1.4%) and Broadcom (+2.1%).
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit their highest levels in over a week as they tracked their longest consecutive run of gains since December.
Investors will also be looking ahead to this week's meeting of the US Federal Reserve, which will end with a policy update on Thursday morning AEDT.
Traders see a more than 97% probability the central bank, which was served grand jury subpoenas from the Department of Justice earlier this month, will hold rates steady.
