Australian shares appear set for a muted open, in line with modest weakness in New York as investors tap the brakes as the rally that’s driven equities to record highs stalls.
The “stalling” came after the S&P 500 reset its intraday record high shortly after the open on Wall Street. The Nasdaq Composite did the same.
However, a report that Oracle’s profit margin in its cloud computing business may not be a strong as expected saw the company’s stock tumble, though it was trying to recover as the session progressed.
Still, the tumble reflected a raft of warnings from market strategists that investors are too enthusiastic about the outlook and that valuations have leapt ahead of fundamentals.
“Momentum can certainly mean revert in the near-term, but the potency of strength tells us more about where the dominant trends are than anything else,” Strategas Securities said in a note.
“Given the historic magnitude of the rally, one thing we’re surprised about is our collection of sentiment barometers is still shy of the euphoric zone. We’ll watch this into the final months of the year, and it may ultimately emerge as a more meaningful threat in 2026, but we’d still stop short of calling sentiment euphoric today.”
Market highlights
ASX 200 futures are pointing up 3 points or 0.03 per cent to 8990.
All US prices near 2.30pm New York time.
AUD -0.5% to US65.87¢Bitcoin -3.2% to $US121,408On Wall St: Dow -0.3% S&P -0.4% Nasdaq -0.7%VIX +0.79 to 17.16Gold +0.6% to $US3982.83 an ounceBrent oil -0.5% to $US65.17 a barrelIron ore +0.1% to $US104.10 a tonne10-year yield: US 4.11% Australia 4.38%Today’s agenda
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is widely expected to cut its key interest rate at a policy meeting on Wednesday. A statement is scheduled for 12pm AEDT.
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