Markets Overview

  • ASX SPI 200 futures down 0.7% to 7,006.00
  • Dow Average down 1.3% to 34,265.37
  • Aussie down 0.7% to 0.7176 per US$
  • U.S. 10-year yield fell 4.6bps to 1.7581%
  • Australia 3-year bond yield fell 7bps to 1.32%
  • Australia 10-year bond yield fell 7bps to 1.92%
  • Gold spot down 0.2% to $1,835.38
  • Brent futures down 0.6% to $87.89/bbl

Economic Events

  • 9am: (AU) Jan. Markit Australia PMI Services, prior 55.1
  • 9am: (AU) Jan. Markit Australia PMI Mfg, prior 57.7
  • 9am: (AU) Jan. Markit Australia PMI Composite, prior 54.9
  • 11am: (AU) Australia to Sell A$1 Billion 0.5% 2026 Bonds

As the Nasdaq 100 comes off its worst week since the pandemic selloff in March 2020, investors now have to contend with Wednesday’s Fed meeting, where officials are expected to signal that they’ll raise interest rates in March and shrink their balance sheet soon after.

Other News

The Ford Mustang Mach-E electric car can hit 60 miles an hour from a standstill in 3.5 seconds. Fergal McGrath prefers to keep the needle stuck at a grandfatherly 40 mph. He’s after a different kind of bragging rights.

Mr. McGrath is a hypermiler, someone who tries to coax as much mileage as possible from their fuel, whether gas or electric. The practice requires driving at a plodding pace to conserve energy, around 40 to 50 mph on a gas-powered vehicle. The sweet spot on an electric car can be agonizingly slow — sometimes below 30 mph.

Road rage from other travelers comes with the territory, as Mr. McGrath saw when he and fellow hypermiler Kevin Booker set a Guinness World Record in July for lowest energy consumption traveling the length of Great Britain. They were able to squeeze 6.45 miles per kilowatt-hour from a Mach-E on their 27-hour, 840-mile trek, driving at an average 40 mph.

“We had some honks and angry people behind us,” said Mr. McGrath, an engineer for an automotive testing and certification company who lives in Swindon, England.

Hypermiling has been done for years with gas- and diesel-powered cars. The expanding EV market offers new opportunities to test the limits of efficiency. It’s also a tactic to dispel range anxiety: the fear of running out of power, far from a charging station.

Car companies have enlisted some of the world’s foremost hypermilers for promotional road trips to plug the message that EVs won’t leave drivers stranded with drained batteries. Range anxiety is one of the top factors deterring potential buyers, according to consumer surveys. Many of the latest electrics have ranges of 250 to 300 miles. Some hypermilers have eked out twice that.