Live updates: ASX opens lower after mixed session on Wall Street, energy stocks higher after oil prices jump, December jobs data to come this week
An Emergency Warning is in place for bushfires at Bindoon, Lennard Brook, Mooliabeenee and Moondah in Western Australia. For the latest, search on ABC Emergency
The Australian share market has opened lower to begin the trading week, with energy stocks leading the early gains off the back of higher oil prices, after a mixed session on Wall Street on Friday.
Follow the day's financial news and insights from our specialist business reporters on our live blog.
Disclaimer: this blog is not intended as investment advice.
To leave a comment on the blog, please log in or sign up for an ABC account.
By Kate Ainsworth
(Prices correct at approximately 10:20am AEDT.)
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
By Kate Ainsworth
If you're one of the millions of Australians who rent where they live (🙋♀️), SQM Research has some slightly good news for you this morning.
Fresh data out today from the researcher shows the national vacancy rate has increased to 1.3% in December — up from the 1.1% in November.
Overall, the total number of rental vacancies across Australia is now at 39,797 properties, up from the 33,471 in November.
Granted, the rental market is still incredibly tough (as anyone who has tried looking for somewhere to live recently can attest), but here's how the capital cities looked in December, according to SQM's data (by vacancy rate % / no. of vacancies):
Meanwhile, capital city asking rents rose by another 1.3%, meaning rents have risen by 14.2% in the past year.
The national median weekly asking rent is now $611.38 a week, with Sydney coming in at the highest of $1,022.35 per week.
By Kate Ainsworth
The local share market opened lower on Monday, down -0.3% to 7,479 points as of 10:20am AEDT.
(For live figures at any time, head to the top of the blog.)
As expected, energy stocks are leading the early gains for the sectors, up 0.6% thanks to higher oil prices.
Both consumer non-cyclicals and consumer cyclicals have gained 0.3%, while technology is up 0.1%.
The rest of the sectors are in the red, with the biggest losses going to healthcare (-0.6%), basic materials (-0.6%), industrials (-0.6%), and utilities (-0.4%).
Other early losses have gone to real estate (-0.3), academic and educational services (-0.2%) and financials (-0.1%).
As for the top performers so far in the opening minutes:
And the worst performers in the early session:
By Kate Ainsworth
Later this week we'll get our jobs figures for December, but over in the US their major banks have slashed their workforce by almost 18,000 in the past year.
Between Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup, the banks reduced their job count by 17,700 combined after reporting their fourth-quarter earnings on Friday.
The workforce at Wells Fargo and Bank of America both contracted by 5% and 2% respectively last year.
Citigroup reduced its headcount by 1,000 to 239,000 employees in 2023 — and announced plans to cut another 20,000 jobs over the next two years as part of a major reorganisation and other business changes at the banker.
JPMorgan on the other hand has added more than 16,200 employees in the past year, after buying the First Republic Bank in May last year.
Both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley haven't disclosed their latest headcounts, however at the end of September they'd cut over 4,300 jobs compared to the year before.
By Kate Ainsworth
Earlier I mentioned that energy producers would be the big focus today — and that's all got to do with oil prices.
Tensions in the Middle East are keeping oil prices higher, up 0.9% on Friday to $US72.68 a barrel (although Brent prices are now slightly higher).
That could be beneficial to Woodside Energy and Beach Energy in particular — but we'll see just how much when markets open shortly.
By Kate Ainsworth
If you missed this over the weekend (no judgement here), this really happened in the US on Friday — Microsoft managed to edge out Apple as the most valuable company in the world.
It's the first time this has happened since 2021, and it's all got to do with concerns about demand for Apple's products.
According to Reuters data, Microsoft's market capitalisation rose to a mega $US2.887 trillion on Friday — it's highest ever, after creeping up 1% during trade.
(Comparatively, Apple's shares only rose by 0.2% on Friday, and Reuters calculated its market capitalisation to be $US2.875 trillion.)
So what's behind the Apple jitters? Simply put, it's all got to do with concerns about slowing demand, especially for iPhones, in China as its economy makes a slow recovery from COVID, and Huawei eats away at its market share.
Apple's Vision Pro mixed-reality headset is only a few weeks away from launching (February 2 in the US, to be precise), which is going to be its biggest product launch since the iPhone in 2007 — but sales from the headset are likely to be "relatively immaterial" to Apple's earnings per share this year, according to a report by UBS last week.
By Kate Ainsworth
(Prices correct at approximately 8:40am AEDT)
By Kate Ainsworth
Good morning and welcome to Monday, January 15 — you're reading the ABC's business and markets blog, and it's great to have your company.
To get us started, let's cast our minds back to Friday (US time) where Wall Street had a mixed session to end the week.
That was largely thanks to disappointing earnings results offsetting much cooler-than-expected producer prices, which buoyed hopes of potential interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
The earnings results in question? Bank of America fell 1.1% after its fourth quarter profits shrunk, Wells Fargo warned of a drop in net interest income in 2024 of between 7-9% (sending its shares down 3.3%), while Citigroup was up 1% after seeing a $US1.8 billion quarterly loss and foreshadowed future job cuts, and JPMorgan Chase was down 0.7% after reporting its best-ever annual profit.
All of that to say is the Dow Jones fell by 0.3%, the S&P 500 gained 0.1%, and the Nasdaq picked up less than 0.1%.
That's also the last markets news we'll get from the US until late Tuesday/early Wednesday our time, thanks to the Martin Luther King Day holiday over in the US.
European markets rose on Friday, snapping its three-day losing streak and chalking up its best performance of the year so far (although, granted, we're only halfway though January).
Airbus was up 3.7% after the plane manufacturer reported record annual jet orders, no doubt helped by the ongoing investigation into the Boeing 737 MAX-9 aircraft after the Alaska Airlines incident last week.
So, where does all of this leave our local market today?
Futures suggest we'll see the ASX 200 open slightly higher this morning, where energy stocks will be in focus (more on that soon).
Things are looking a little light when it comes to the local data and company news fronts today, but it won't stay that way this week — the latest unemployment data for December will be out on Thursday.
I know there's a bit to digest straight up on a Monday morning, but consider this your permission to grab a coffee and see what the day has in store.
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.
AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)