The Australian market edged slightly higher in early morning trade and crypto got a nice shot in the arm.
The S&P/ASX200 shifted up 9.10 points, or 0.11%, to 8,471.70 points at 10.31am AEDT. The index has gained 0.32% over the past five days and is currently 0.50% off its 52-week high.
US President-elect Donald Trump has decided to appoint a pro-crypto advocate to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission which pushed Bitcoin to US$99,000 ($153,908) overnight.
US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, meanwhile, has slightly tempered expectations of a December rate cut, but that did not seem to have an impact on market sentiment.
Powell said the US economy is stronger than expected and that could allow policymakers more caution in lowering interest rates.
Evercor ISI’s Krishna views the comments as “slightly hawkish”, but believes they stop well short of challenging the market’s growing confidence that a December cut is the base case.
Expectations of a quarter point rate cut rose to 75.5%, up from 72.9% a day earlier.
ANZ analysts think the Fed is approaching the cusp of slowing its cutting cycle, a sentiment that was echoed in comments from some Fed policymakers.
St Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said that the time may be approaching to consider slowing the pace of interest rate reductions or pausing to carefully assess the current economic environment, incoming information and evolving outlook.
Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said that the direction of inflation is encouraging, and the Fed should proceed on a careful path to neutral.
Meanwhile, gold has resumed its upward trajectory on political turmoil in France and South Korea, advancing to US$2,653.
While ANZ says this is supporting safe haven demand, investors are “holding a cautious stance ahead of the US nonfarm payroll data”.
In the Australian market, six of the 11 sectors started the trading day in the green. Consumer discretionary is the best performing sector with an early intra-day gain of 0.27% and a 1.88% increase over the past five days.
Industrials was up 0.14% while materials continued its retreat, slipping 0.14%.
Gold producers dominated the top five, with West African Resources (ASX:WAF) rising 2.98% to $1.56, Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD) up 2.70% at $2.48 and Westgold Resources (ASX:WGX) advancing 2.49% to $2.88.
The bottom five were all miners, as lithium miner Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR) led the slide down with a 3.60% retreat to $0.67.
Champion Iron (ASX:CIA) slipped 2.18% to $5.84, IGO (ASX:IGO) dropped 1.99% to $4.94, Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) shifted down 1.85% to $34.45 and Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC) decreased 1.69% to $6.40.
The S&P/ASX200 is Australia’s leading share market index and contains the top 200 ASX-listed companies in terms of market capitalisation, and accounts for about 80% of the country’s equity market. The index is designed to measure the performance of the 200 largest index-eligible stocks listed on the ASX by float-adjusted market capitalisation
It is recognised as the institutional investable benchmark in the country.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: ASX & Unsplash
