Live: Renewed Gulf hostilities put markets on edge, ASX poised for marginal gain

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Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 6:40am

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 6:40am

Market snapshot

By Stephen Letts

ASX 200 futures: +0.2% to 8,774 points

ASX 200 (Friday): +0.2% to 8,764 points

Australian dollar: -0.2 to 68.97 US cents

Wall Street (Friday): S&P 500 -0.1%, Dow -0.1% Nasdaq -1.1%

Europe (Friday): Dax -0.2%, FTSE -0.2%, Eurostoxx -0.7%

Spot gold: +1.6% to $US4,088/ounce

Oil: Brent futures -4.3% to $US71.99/barrel, WTI futures -3.7% to $U69.23/barrel

Iron ore (Friday): +1.0% to $US98.50/tonne

Copper (LME): +1.8% to $US13,316/tonne

Bitcoin: +1.3% at $US60,395

Prices current around 7am AEST

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 8:30am

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 8:30am

Aussie dollar will continue to slide: CBA

By Stephen Letts

The Australian dollar will continue to be under pressure from the rising US dollar, according to CBA's foreign exchange research team.

"AUD/USD touched our end of quarter forecast of 0.6900 last week," CBA's Joseph Capurso wrote in a morning note.

"From here, we expect AUD/USD to stay on its downward path in large part because of a stronger USD.

"Following last week's emerging softness in Australian employment, we expect residual pricing for another interest rate increase by the Reserve Bank of Australia to fade and weigh on AUD/USD," Mr Capurso said.

The CBA team forecast the Aussie dollar will consolidate near 0.6081 Euro cents this week.

"However, we judge that there are downside risks to AUD/EUR over the coming months.

"Residual RBA interest rate hike pricing will fade and weigh on AUD/EUR.

"A growing focus on AI and other high-tech investment may also lead to Australia being tagged (an) 'old economy', weighing on AUD against the major currencies," Mr Capurso said.

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 8:15am

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 8:15am

This week: Housing insights, US jobs

By Stephen Letts

Australia:

Mon: RBA Assistant Governor Christopher Kent speaks

Tue: RBA minutes released, Private sector credit (May)

Wed: Home price index (Jun), Building approvals (May)

Thu: International trade balance (May)

International:

Mon: EU — Consumer confidence (Jun)

Tue: CN — Manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMIs (Jun)

US — Consumer confidence (Jun), House prices (Apr)

UK — GDP (Q1)

Wed: EU — CPI (Jun)

Thu: US — Non-farm payrolls, unemployment, Average hourly earnings (Jun)

It's not an exactly stellar week for macro wonks, although Tuesday's release of the RBA's meeting minutes will provide some light reading material.

Rates were kept on hold this month, but the minutes will be scanned to see to what extent the Board is maintaining its tightening bias.

Tuesday's release of the June Private Sector Credit numbers is forecast to show the first signs of a slowdown in borrowing after three rate hikes.

Cotality's June Home Value Index (Wednesday) is expected to show a further deterioration in the property market after values across the nation edged down in May.

The building approvals series is always volatile, the consensus pick is for a fairly flat result in May (Tuesday), but the overall trend is nudging higher.

Australia's trade surplus has been narrowing — it was in deficit in March — with Thursday's release of the May data expected to show a $1 billion-to-$2 billion surplus with LNG exports slowing, rural exports rising and perhaps another big influx of data centre equipment.

Overseas, the US jobs market — non-farm payrolls and unemployment — on Thursday will be the focus, but European inflation (Wednesday) will also be closely watched.

Key Event

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 7:56am

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 7:56am

US and Iran agree to halt attacks: Axios

By Stephen Letts

Iran and the United States agreed to halt recent hostilities in the Gulf and renew talks regarding their dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, the US-based news site Axios has just reported.

If true, it could end the tit-for-tat strikes that had threatened to unravel an interim peace agreement and strangle the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz again.

The two sides plan to meet Tuesday in Qatar, Axios reported, citing a senior US official.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A return to diplomacy would follow several days of strikes and counterstrikes since an Iranian projectile hit a cargo vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, with both the U.S. and Iran accusing the other of breaking an interim ceasefire that was agreed to on June 17.

Reuters

Key Event

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 7:35am

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 7:35am

IPO-bound Firmus Technologies signs chip deal with Nvidia

By Stephen Letts

Australian AI infrastructure company Firmus Technologies says it has signed a strategic partnership with Nvidia Corp to help provide emerging AI firms with more cost-effective access to computing power.

Firmus says it will see buy Nvidia infrastructure and sell Nvidia-powered cloud services to "AI native" customers, among others, in an agreement that would earn the US-listed chip giant product revenue and a share of cloud revenue.

The deal will deliver 170,000 graphics processing units (GPU) from the first quarter of 2027 to the start of 2028.

The Firmus data centre will be in Batam, Indonesia.

Firmus says it expects to earn up to $30 billion in revenue during the first six years of the deal, based on customer commitments.

The Australian-founded company says the deal will make it easier for smaller and developing AI firms to access the technology's infrastructure.

"We have worked to figure out how to close the gap between the cost benefits that the large guys have access to, which they do because they have great credit ratings, and the guys that are up and comers," Firmus co-chief executive Tim Rosenfield told Reuters.

"This is actually a really material way to level the playing field a little bit to give the next a chance to compete with the big guys."

Nvidia has participated in Firmus's previous capital raisings, making it an investor in the Australian firm, according to Firmus.

Firmus said in April it had raised $1.35 billion over the previous six months, giving it a $5.5 billion post-money valuation. It has appointed investment banks to work on a potential initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.

Reuters

Key Event

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 7:18am

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 7:18am

Wall St closes lower as tech sell-off continues, ASX set to open marginally higher

By Stephen Letts

The fragile Gulf ceasefire is looking more fragile by the hour.

The key trade at the moment seems to be missile fire between US and Iranian forces. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a trickle again.

Much of this escalation happened after US markets closed on Friday, but the anxiety was there with investors sitting on the sidelines and if anything, selling rather than buying.

Wall Street's benchmark index, the S&P 500 edged down 0.1% on Friday to be down 2% for the week.

US markets are not alone in the doldrums. In the second week of the supposed US-Iran ceasefire, Eurozone shares fell 1.3%, Japanese shares 2.7% and China was down 1.5%.

Korea's Kospi tumbled more than 7%, in large part due to more than 50% of the index being made up by two stocks — the giant chip makers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

They were sold off savagely last week when markets yelled "Abandon chips" after some eye watering gains over the past 12 months.

It's not exactly the so called "chip wreck" yet, but investors appear to be nervously eyeing the lifeboats.

The tech-centric Nasdaq slipped 0.2% on Friday to be down almost 5% for the week.

The best gauge for sentiment in the microchip/memory sector, the Philadelphia chip index fell more than 5% on Friday and 8% over the week on mounting fears that the massive spending to build AI data centres may take too long to pay off.

"It's too early to conclude that there's a major correction brewing in tech, but what I would say is that the questions around profitability and the capex story are certainly not going away," at AlphaCore Wealth Advisory chief investment strategist David Stubbs told Reuters.

Higher-than-expected US inflation on Thursday — it rose above 4% over the year to May — keeps alive the possibility of the Fed raising rates, particularly after Apple announced it will jack up prices on its computers due to the soaring cost of chips.

"We saw a similar dynamic during the pandemic, when supply chain disruptions limited access to semiconductors," B. Riley Wealth market strategist Art Hogan said.

"Now, we're witnessing a comparable supply shock, this time driven by memory, which is creating renewed inflationary pressure."

Operating in the other direction, oil prices continued to sink, which does provide some hope for inflation easing back to the Fed's preferred level.

Brent crude futures settled at $US71.99 a barrel, down 4.3%, while the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate finished at $US69.23 a barrel, down 3.7%.

Brent has fallen more than 10% over the past five trading sessions.

"There is a growing sense that oil is going to keep moving through the Strait of Hormuz," Price Futures Group senior analyst Phil Flynn said.

Traders' anxiety has flipped from supply issues to demand issues.

"We're going to get a flood of oil," Mr Flynn said. "I think we're going to see a huge flood of products."

Oil giant Saudi Aramco resumed oil loading on Friday at its Ras Tanura terminal in the Gulf after a nearly four-month halt, shipping data from LSEG showed.

Two very large crude carriers (VLCCs), which can load cargoes of 2 million barrels, took on crude at the terminal while another waited nearby.

"There is a general selloff as the market reacts to the increased flows exiting the Strait of Hormuz and China not yet picking up crude demand," oil market analyst at Sparta Commodities June Goh said.

Despite slightly hotter-than-expected inflation, the US dollar paused its recent gains on Friday.

That gave a bit of respite to gold and Bitcoin, but both lost ground over the week.

The Aussie dollar, though, continued to retreat.

Copper edged up on Friday but was down almost 2% for the week.

Iron ore also rose marginally, making its first weekly gain in seven weeks as traders covered short positions amid resilient demand in top consumer China.

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 6:39am

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 6:39am

Good morning

By Stephen Letts

Good morning and welcome to another day on the ABC markets and finance blog.

Stephen Letts from ABC business team limbering up for a blow-by-blow coverage of the day's events, where every post is hopefully a winner, but none should be construed as financial advice.

The ASX appears to be holding up despite Wall Street's retreat on Friday, but then again US markets were dragged down by the tech stocks, a sector that doesn't have an outsized influence here.

And there is the not insubstantial question about "when is a ceasefire not a ceasefire?" To the blog's slightly naive view of the world, missiles whizzing around over the Gulf is not a sign of a robust agreement holding.

Nonetheless, when trading closed on Saturday morning, ASX 200 futures were pointing to a 0.2% gain, which would be a handy start after the market shed 0.7% last week.

Whether that marginally positive sentiment holds will be answered in a couple of hours.

The corporate and macro calendars are looking a bit empty today, but as always, the game's afoot, so let's get blogging.