2h agoThu 18 Dec 2025 at 8:46pmMarket snapshotASX 200 futures: +0.7% to 8,615 pointsAustralian dollar: +0.1% to 66.11 US centsS&P 500: +0.8% to 6,775 pointsNasdaq: +1.4% to 23,006 pointsFTSE: +0.7% to 9,838 pointsEuroStoxx: +1% to 606 pointsSpot gold: -0.2% to $US4,331/ounceBrent crude: +0.1% to $US59.76/barrelIron ore: +1.3% to $US105.00 a tonneBitcoin: -0.8% to $US85,258

Price current around 8:40am AEDT

Live updates on the major ASX indices:

13m agoThu 18 Dec 2025 at 10:44pmBoE cut rates to lowest level since early 2023(Reuters: Toby Melville)

The Bank of England has cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.75% with BoE Governor Andrew Bailey saying that further reductions would be “a closer call”.

In an interview with broadcasters, Mr Bailey said he was “very encouraged” by how far inflation had fallen since the middle of the year when it reached a peak of 3.8%.

Official data on Wednesday showed that inflation dropped to 3.2% in November from 3.6% in October.

“I think now that we’re on a path where we’ll probably be around this level for a few months. But we think that come the spring, April or May time, we should see another quite sharp drop, and take this, I hope, to around target,” he said.

The BoE forecast in early November that inflation would remain above its 2% target until the second quarter of 2027.

“We’re going to come back to target sooner than we thought. So that’s encouraging. All of this is very encouraging. And for me, certainly, it was a strong basis to cut today,” Mr Bailey said.

British inflation remains higher than in other large, advanced economies.

Mr Bailey said that even after the latest cut, he believed that interest rates were still bearing down on inflation — a view that was not shared by some of the Monetary Policy Committee members who voted against the cut.

But he said that interest rates were getting closer to a neutral level and rate cuts were likely to become less frequent.

“The calls will become closer, and I would expect the pace of cuts, therefore, to ease off at some point. But I’m not going to judge exactly when that is, because it’s too uncertain at the moment,” he said.

Reporting with Reuters

1h agoThu 18 Dec 2025 at 9:43pmECB holds rates steady, upgrades economic outlook(Reuters: Heiko Becker)

The European Central Bank has kept its policy rates steady on Thursday, a move that probably closes the door to further rate cuts in the near term.

Asked at a press conference whether the ECB’s next rate move was more likely to be up than down, the bank’s President Christine Lagarde said policymakers agreed there was “no set date for any move”.

It was a unanimous view around the table, she said, repeating the ECB line that it would set borrowing costs meeting-by-meeting depending on incoming data and that it was not pre-committing to a particular rate path.

“With the degree of uncertainty we are facing, we simply cannot offer forward guidance,” she added.

In its statement, the ECB said the uncertain global outlook would remain a drag on growth in the 20-country eurozone and renewed its appeal for national governments to push ahead with reforms to make the economy more efficient and competitive.

In its new projections, the ECB still sees inflation dipping below 2% next year and in 2027, mostly on lower energy costs, but then expects it to come back to the target in 2028.

It signalled that services inflation might decline more slowly than expected due to wage costs.

Output growth was seen as slightly quicker this year because the eurozone economy is proving more resilient than feared to the impact of higher US tariffs and cheap Chinese imports. Lagarde said exports meanwhile remained “sustainable” in the current climate.

The ECB now expects growth of 1.4% this year, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028.

Reporting with Reuters

1h agoThu 18 Dec 2025 at 9:36pm

Wall St closes higher fueled by tech rally

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1%, to 47,951, the S&P 500 gained 0.8%, to 6,774 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.4%, to 23,006.

1h agoThu 18 Dec 2025 at 9:00pmTrump Media group buys fusion power company for $9bn

Trump Media & Technology Group, the company which owns the US president’s social media platform Truth Social, has bought a fusion power company for $US6 billion ($9 billion).

Fusion energy, which is different from nuclear energy, has long been hoped to generate vast amounts of energy with little danger but has so far not been commercially viable.

The unusual tie-up comes as the Trump administration pushes power-hungry AI technology that will require a massive build-out of energy sources.

Read more by clicking the link below.

2h agoThu 18 Dec 2025 at 8:55pmMicron jumps on strong AI demand, Wall Street higher

The three major indexes on Wall Street have rebounded from three-week lows on Wednesday, while the Russell 2000 index, tracking rate-sensitive small caps, has advanced 1%.

Seven of the 11 S&P sectors advanced, led by consumer discretionary (+1.9%) as Lululemon surged 4.8% on a report that activist investor Elliott has acquired more than a $US1 billion stake in the athletic-wear company.

Starbucks also rallied 5.1%.

Among tech stocks, Micron Technology jumped 13% after the company forecast quarterly profit at nearly double what analysts were expecting on strong artificial intelligence-related demand.

Other memory companies including SanDisk and Western Digital also surged, while the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index climbed 3.2%.

Companies’ massive debt-backed spending on developing AI technology and uncertainty about how they plan to monetise it have plagued risk-taking this quarter.

Oracle climbed 0.7%, recovering from a fall on Wednesday when funding plans for a Stargate data centre sparked a broad equities selloff.

Trump Media & Technology jumped 38.1% after the company and fusion power firm TAE Technologies said they have agreed to combine in an all-stock deal valued at more than $US6 billion.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expedite reclassifying cannabis as a less dangerous drug, boosting shares of cannabis companies.

Reporting with Reuters

2h agoThu 18 Dec 2025 at 8:51pmUS consumer prices rise less than expected in November

The delayed Consumer Price Index in the US showed that consumer prices increased less than expected in the year to November.

Headline inflation fell to 2.7% year on year from 3.0% in September while core inflation fell to 2.6% year on year from 3.0% in September.

The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish month-to-month CPI changes after the 43-day shutdown of the government prevented the collection of October data.

“The constructive CPI report … starts to ease pressure on policymakers further to potentially get more comfortable cutting rates next year,” said Bill Merz, head of capital markets research at US Bank’s Asset Management Group.

“We’ll want to see follow-through next month to ensure there wasn’t too much noise from the shutdown.”

A jobless claims report showed new applications fell last week, reversing the prior week’s surge and suggesting labor market conditions remained stable in December.

Earlier this week, an official jobs report showed US job growth rebounded in November and the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%.

Traders now see a 58% chance for a dovish policy move by the Fed in March, according to CME’s FedWatch Tool.

Reporting with Reuters

2h agoThu 18 Dec 2025 at 8:32pmASX to rise

Good morning and welcome to Friday’s markets live blog, where we’ll bring you the latest price action and news on the ASX and beyond.

A rally on Wall Street overnight sets the tone for local market action today.

The Dow Jones index gained 0.2 per cent, the S&P 500 advanced 0.9 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.4 per cent.

ASX futures were up 55 points or 0.6 per cent to 8.623 at 7:00am AEDT.

At the same time, the Australian dollar was up 0.2 per cent to 66.12 US cents.

Brent crude oil was down 0.1 per cent, trading at $US59.71 a barrel.

Spot gold dropped 0.2 per cent to $US4,331.52.

Iron ore rose 1.3 per cent to $US105.00 a tonne.