Market snapshot
Australian dollar: +0.1% t 62.7 US cents
Dow Jones: +0.3% to 44,443 points
S&P 500: +0.7% to 6,069.5 points
Nasdaq: +1.1% to 19,737 points
FTSE: +0.8% to 8,767 points
EuroStoxx 50: +0.6% to 5,358.3 points
Spot gold: +1.5% to $US2,904/ounce
Brent crude: +1.3% to $US76.02/barrel
Iron ore: $US106.73/tonne
Bitcoin: +0.7% to $US97,110
Prices current around 7:30am AEDT.
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
The court case sending a shiver through corporate Australia
Today will see the second day of regulator ASIC’s case in the Federal Court against 10 former senior management and directors (board members) of troubled casino giant Star Entertainment.
But this case is about much more than Star.
That’s because it’s one of the biggest cases we can recall where the regulator has sought to push the court on ‘directors duties’ – which is essentially if the top brass at a company did their jobs well enough.
The case is about potential breaches of the Corporations Act, the laws that govern how business is done.
The implications – if the regulator is successful – would see directors have to be more curious and push harder against the ‘everything is fine’ assurances they might get from people involved in the business itself.
The case is set down to run for 6 weeks.
The 10 people facing the civil penalties are defending themselves and are yet to interrogate the regulator’s case, which will continue to be laid out today.
Here’s a great summary of yesterday’s action, from my colleagues Rachel Clayton and Stephanie Chalmers.
Albanese-Trump phone call looms as steel and aluminum industries ponder tariff uncertainty
US President Donald Trump has proposed sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, but there’s a bit of movement since yesterday’s shock.
Essentially a phone call, and more calls.
Firstly, the Prime Minister is set to speak to the US President about the move today. (A similar situation occurred with then-PM Malcolm Turnbull, who managed to defuse the situation over a period of months).
Secondly the US Congress is not totally on board, with the movebranded “completely needless” and “almost an insult to the people of Australia” on the floor of the parliament.
A day after Mr Trump announced he had signed an executive order to introduce the new taxes, Representative Joe Courtney, a Democrat from Connecticut, teed off in a session at the Capitol.
“Australia is a key strategic ally for our country. They are positioned in the Indo-Pacific at a place where, again, tensions are sky high and we need their input, their help in terms of making sure that we are going to rebalance that security environment and protect the rule of law and the Indo-Pacific,” Mr Courtney told the house on Monday, local time.
“Instead, what we’re seeing is a completely needless, almost insult to the people of Australia by raising tariffs of Australian products coming into this country.”
More to come.
Good morning!
Let’s get our blog on, shall we.
I’m Daniel Ziffer from the ABC business unit and I’ll be taking you through this morning with all the latest updates on the market, finance and economics.
Overnight, Wall Street indices lifted
(These figures are accurate at the time of writing, we’ll update our market snapshot with their closing figures.)
The blue-chip Dow Jones index was was +0.3% to 44,443 points, which is going to drive some people absolutely bananas. Get that one more point up!
The broader S&P 500 index, covering the 500 largest listed companies in the US, was +0.7% to 6,069.5 points.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq was +1.1% to 19,737 points.
Lots to come, let’s get into it.
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