Markets Overview

  • ASX SPI 200 futures down 0.2% to 6,685.00
  • Dow Average down 0.4% to 31,899.29
  • Aussie down 0.1% to 0.6926 per US$
  • U.S. 10-year yield fell 12.5bps to 2.7504%
  • Australia 3-year bond yield fell 10 bps to 3.09%
  • Australia 10-year bond yield fell 13 bps to 3.44%
  • Gold spot up 0.5% to $1,727.64
  • Brent futures down 0.6% to $103.20/bbl

Economic Events

  • 11:00: (AU) Australia to Sell A$300 Million 3% 2047 Bonds

The bond market wants to believe Jerome Powell can get inflation under control. As investors brace for the Fed’s next hike on Wednesday, measures suggest traders’ outlook for prices has been tempered and is back where it was in February, before the Russia-Ukraine war. The five-year, five-year forward breakeven rate fell on Thursday to just beneath where it stood on Feb. 18, and is well below the 2.57% mark it hit in April. Many are also betting the Fed may end rate hikes earlier and at a lower level than previously thought.

Other News

Dramatic video footage shows the moment a young schoolboy was rescued by the RNLI after being blown more than a mile out to sea by strong winds in the midst of this week’s heat wave.

The 11-year-old was at the beach with his family on Tuesday near Dungeness, Kent.

He was in an orange inflatable dinghy at sea when strong winds caught him and he was blown offshore.

A member of the public called 999 and asked for the Coastguard as his mother desperately shouted at him not to try and swim ashore, but to stay on board the dinghy.

The Dungeness volunteer RNLI crew leapt into action and rushed out to search for the youngster.

The footage, released by the RNLI, shows the lifeboat pulling up alongside the boy in the dinghy, which is bobbing in an otherwise empty sea.

One male volunteer remarks that the dinghy has gone far out to sea in not a long time.

The second female volunteer shouts to the boy, dressed in neon-green swimming shorts, to check he is alright, giving him a thumbs up and telling him: ‘Well done for staying there [in the dinghy].’

The first crew member uses a pole to hook the dinghy and pull it close alongside the boat, where the second crew member reaches down and picks up the 11-year-old, holding him tight to her chest as she pulls him onto the boat.

Before making physical contact with the boy she speaks to him again, and the youngster appears relieved and manages a small smile.

The crew even managed to pick the family dinghy out of the water too, and returned it to shore.

The boy’s mother said: ‘I shouted out to him to stay still and stay on the boat, and he listened.

The RNLI always expect to be busy during the summer holidays – last summer its volunteers saved 41 lives, 39 per cent of whom were children under 13.

The charity operates 238 lifeboat stations around the UK and Ireland and says that since being founded in 1824, its lifeboats and crews have saved more than 142,700 lives.