Markets Overview
- ASX SPI 200 futures up 0.8% to 7,101.00
- Dow Average up 1.0% to 34,021.97
- Aussie up 0.8% to 0.6344 per US$
- U.S. 10-year yield rose 9.1bps to 4.7039%
- Australia 3-year bond yield rose 0.7 bps to 3.95%
- Australia 10-year bond yield fell 0.6 bps to 4.46%
- Gold spot down 0.7% to $1,919.27
- Brent futures down 1.0% to $90.01/bbl
Economic Events
- 11:30: (AU) RBA Minutes of Oct. Policy Meeting
Stocks rose and bonds fell amid diplomatic efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from expanding into a regional conflict. Oil declined, following last week’s rally.
The S&P 500 added 1.1%, with traders also gearing up for a raft of earnings reports. Treasury 10-year yields climbed nine basis points to 4.7%. The dollar retreated. Bitcoin pared gains after surging as much as 10% as BlackRock said its application for an exchange-traded fund that invests directly in the cryptocurrency is still under review. The Israeli shekel hit an eight-year low.
Wall Street’s haven bid waned, with President Joe Biden considering a trip to Israel as part of a push to prevent the war from spreading. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also returned to Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after talks with Arab governments. Russian President Vladimir Putin held a call with the leaders of Egypt, Syria, Iran and the Palestinian Authority, and the Kremlin said there was a “unanimous opinion” on the need for a cease-fire. He spoke separately with Netanyahu.
Other News
Big tech companies like X Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are making it harder to stamp out misinformation and child exploitation materials on their platforms, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.
The online safety regulator on Monday issued Google an official warning and X, formerly known as Twitter Inc., a A$610,500 ($386,200) fine for failing to respond to questions about how they detect, remove and prevent child sexual abuse material and grooming.
“If you can build a sophisticated AI system and target advertising with deadly precision, you should be able to do the same with hate speech” or child sexual abuse material, Inman Grant said, on a panel at South by South West (SXSW) festival in Sydney Monday. “But instead, what we’re seeing is the companies are making it harder and making their platforms more opaque.”
The regulator in February asked X, TikTok, Google, Discord and Twitch what steps they were taking to tackle crimes against children playing out on their services.
Google was issued a warning for providing generic responses to specific questions, the regulator said in a statement. X’s non-compliance was “more serious,” it said. The social media giant left blank some responses to questions about detecting and responding to reports of child exploitation material, while providing incomplete and inaccurate responses to others.
“Protecting children on our platforms is the most important work we do,” said Google’s Lucinda Longcroft, Director Government Affairs and Public Policy for Australia and New Zealand, in an emailed statement. “We remain committed to these efforts and collaborating constructively and in good faith with the eSafety Commissioner, government and industry on the shared goal of keeping Australians safer online.”
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Elsewhere, regulators in the EU are also cracking down on tech companies to stop the spread of misinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Google has recently faced scrutiny for disseminating misinformation to Russian audiences on a popular Android service about the invasion on Ukraine. Meanwhile, researchers say posts on X about Hamas’ recent attack in Israel have led to confusion, misinformation and conflict.
(Bloomberg)
