Markets Overview

  • ASX SPI 200 futures down 0.4% to 7,330.00
  • Dow Average down 0.1% to 35,248.16
  • Aussie little changed at 0.7416 per US$
  • U.S. 10-year yield little changed at 1.5809%
  • Australia 3-year bond yield rose 19bps to 0.78%
  • Australia 10-year bond yield rose 9bps to 1.74%
  • Gold spot down 0.2% to $1,764.35
  • Brent futures down 0.8% to $84.19/bbl

Economic Events

  • 9:30am: (AU) Oct. ANZ Roy Morgan Weekly Consumer, prior 105.6
  • 11:30am: (AU) RBA Minutes of Oct. Policy Meeting

U.S. stocks extended a rebound on Monday as a whipsaw in energy prices relieved some pressure on the market.
The S&P 500 added 0.3% and the Nasdaq 100 gained 1% in a continuation of last week’s gains when solid corporate earnings and economic reports were enough to outweigh concerns about energy shortages and supply-chain disruptions. Earlier on Monday OPEC+ failed to meet output targets and Russiaopted against sending more natural gas to Europe, pushing commodity prices higher. However, oil’s decline from a session high eased some fears of inflation and policy tightening. The S&P 500 has now pared back losses from an all-time high to about 1.1%. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note climbed to 1.59% while U.K. yields surged after the Bank of England warned on the need to respond to price pressures. Rate-hike bets have now also picked up in Australia and New Zealand, where inflation accelerated to the fastest pace in 10 years. The dollar was little changed.

 

Other News

Singapore, Oct 17 (PTI) Six-year-old Indian-origin
Ishani Shanmugam broke Singapore’s national record for most digits of Pi memorised by reciting 1,560 decimal places.
Sitting in her living room on October 13, Ishani calmly recited the digits in about 10 minutes, with personnel from the Singapore Book of Records verifying the numbers. In September last year, Ishani, who attends PCF Sparkletots (Kindergarten), could recite 409 digits of Pi. But she told her parents she wanted to learn more digits. Her mother, Vennila Munusamy, 36, told The Straits Times on Saturday that her heart was pounding during the event. Vennila added, “She wants to learn even more Pi digits now, to add more digits to her record.”
She beat memory trainers Sancy Suraj, who held the previous record with 1,505 digits in 2018. The current Guinness World Record is held by Rajveer Meena, who as a 21-year-old in 2015, recited 70,000 digits at the VIT University in India.