Markets Overview
- ASX SPI 200 futures down 1.5% to 6,922.00
- Dow Average down 3.0% to 32,283.40
- Aussie down 1.4% to 0.6880 per US$
- U.S. 10-year yield rose 1.5bps to 3.0409%
- Australia 3-year bond yield fell 8 bps to 3.20%
- Australia 10-year bond yield fell 9.8 bps to 3.58%
- Gold spot down 1.2% to $1,738.14
- Brent futures up 1.7% to $100.99/bbl
Economic Events
- 11:30: (AU) July Retail Sales MoM, est. 0.3%, prior 0.2%
US equity futures slid Monday and stocks in Asia are set for a weak open after hawkish rhetoric from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell sparked sharp drops on Wall Street and pushed up the dollar.
Equity futures shed nearly 2% for Japan and almost 1.5% for Australia, while US contracts were in the red after declines of 3.4% and 4.1% in the S&P 500 and technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 respectively on Friday.
Other News
The late actor Nichelle Nichols, best known as Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, will become the latest member of the 1960s television series to be memorialized by having some of her earthly remains flown into space.
Nichols, who died on 30 July at age 89, is credited with helping shatter racial stereotypes and redefining Hollywood roles for Black actors at the height of the US civil rights movement, as one of the first Black women to portray an empowered character on network television.
Now she has been added to the posthumous passenger manifest of a real-life rocket-ship due to carry a collection of vials containing cremated ashes and DNA samples from dozens of departed space enthusiasts on a final, and eternal voyage around the sun, according to organizers of the tribute.
A date for the launch has not yet been set.
Other Star Trek cast members and executives who have had remains launched into space include James Doohan, who played the show’s chief engineer Scotty, and Star Trek’s creator, Gene Roddenberry.
Also joining the launch will be the remains of Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who played nurse Christine Chapel on the series, and the renowned sci-fi visual effects artist Douglas Trumbull, whose work was featured in such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
The launch is organized by Celestis Inc, a Texas-based company that has created a unique niche in the burgeoning commercial space sector by offering a measure of cosmic immortality to customers that can afford a dramatic send-off, which contracts with private rocket ventures.
Celestis has not publicly divulged the fees and other financial details of its service.
The upcoming memorial flight will be aboard a Vulcan Centaur rocket, still under development by the Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA).
Plans call for the 200-plus capsules carrying human remains and DNA for what Celestis is calling its Enterprise Flight to go inside the upper rocket stage that will fly on into deep space, beyond the gravitational pull of the Earth and moon and eventually enter a perpetual solar orbit, said Charles Chafer, co-founder and chief executive officer of Celestis.
“It’s a wonderful memorial for her, an eternal one,” said Nichols’ son Kyle Johnson.
In the 1970s, Nichols was hired by Nasa to help recruit more marginalized groups and women to the space agency, where she was influential in attracting such talent as the first female US astronaut, Sally Ride, the first Black female astronaut, Mae Jemison, and the first Black Nasa chief, Charlie Bolden.
(The Guardian)
