Markets Overview

  • ASX SPI 200 futures up 0.1% to 7,394.00
  • Dow Average up 0.3% to 35,580.12
  • Aussie up 0.6% to 0.7519 per US$
  • U.S. 10-year yield little changed at 1.6444%
  • Australia 3-year bond yield fell 1bp to 0.76%
  • Australia 10-year bond yield rose 8bps to 1.81%
  • Gold spot up 0.9% to $1,785.10
  • Brent futures up 0.8% to $85.73/bbl

Economic Events

  • 10:30am: (AU) Australia to Sell A$1 Billion 182-Day Bills
  • 10:30am: (AU) Australia to Sell A$1 Billion 91-Day Bills
  • 11:30am: (AU) Sept. RBA FX Transactions Market, prior A$914m
  • 11:30am: (AU) Sept. RBA FX Transactions Government, prior -A$962m
  • 11:30am: (AU) Sept. RBA FX Transactions Other, prior A$12b
  • 11:30am: (AU) Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages in Australia (for Sept. 25)
  • 11:30am: (AU) 3Q NAB Business Confidence, prior 17
  • 3:30pm: (AU) RBA Annual Report

U.S. equities continued their rally into a sixth day, putting the benchmark S&P 500 within a whisker of its closing high.
The S&P 500 gained 0.4% as traders weighed company earnings against risks from inflationary pressures. Verizon Communications Inc. and Anthem Inc. were higher after better-than-expected results. Meanwhile, Novavax Inc. plunged on another vaccine delay, and Netflix Inc. was lower after an underwhelming outlook.
The gains come on the heels of the S&P 500’s best start to an earnings season in the last two years with the index gaining about 3.6% in the first week. Solid corporate results have helped counter concerns stemming from elevated inflation, driving stocks higher.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was little changed as corporate earnings have taken some of the spotlight away from concerns about stagflation — the combination of lower growth and higher inflation. Still, clouds are gathering over the economic recovery in the face of higher energy costs, global supply-chain bottlenecks and reduced central bank support.

 

Other News

After more than two decades as the official wizard of Christchurch, Ian Brackenbury Channell, 88, saw his $10,000 annual contract go poof last week, according to Stuff, a news site in New Zealand.
No longer will the city payroll support “acts of wizardry and other wizard-like services,” as his contract had demanded since 1998. No longer will taxpayers pay for his rain dances, philosophizing and — perhaps more tangibly — his magnetism to tourists.

Some fair questions might follow: What does an official wizard do? What are wizard-like services? How does one become a paid wizard?
Unfortunately for aspiring wizards, it is not a lucrative career path. The Wizard himself was a pro bono wizard for 16 years after he was named the city’s official wizard in 1982. He is believed to be the world’s only wizard to appear on a government payroll.

He has also had larger responsibilities. He cast spells to help rugby teams (though he later wrote that he regretted it and offered to resign in 1984 after the wrong team won). In 1988, he was summoned to Waimate, on New Zealand’s South Island, to perform a rain dance to help combat a drought. It poured about half an hour after he finished. He would later be summoned to Australia to help with a drought in the Outback, skipping in a circle while drumming and being splashed with buckets of water.

The government won the battle, and he disappeared from the town square. Thousands of people signed a petition demanding he come back. His last paycheck from the city will come in December, according to Stuff.