Markets Overview

  • ASX SPI 200 futures down 0.4% to 7,298.00
  • Dow Average up 0.3% to 33,061.50
  • Aussie down 0.1% to 0.7052 per US$
  • U.S. 10-year yield rose 3.8bps to 2.9729%
  • Australia 3-year bond yield rose 12bps to 2.82%
  • Australia 10-year bond yield rose 14bps to 3.26%
  • Gold spot down 1.8% to $1,863.05
  • Brent futures up 0.3% to $107.50/bbl

Economic Events

  • 9:30am: (AU) May ANZ Roy Morgan Weekly Consumer, prior 96.5
  • 2:30pm: (AU) May RBA Cash Rate Target, est. 0.25%, prior 0.10%

Stocks closed higher at the start of a week that’s likely to be marked by unnerving market gyrations, with the Federal Reserve expected to deliver its biggest rate hike in two decades.

Dip buyers emerged after the worst month for the S&P 500 since the onset of the pandemic, sending the benchmark gauge up after a slide that reached 1.7% earlier Monday. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 outperformed amid a rally in giants like Microsoft Corp. and Tesla Inc. Treasury 10-year yields traded near 3%, climbing alongside the dollar.

The negativity in the U.S. stock market has become so overwhelming that a rebound may not be far off, said JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s strategists led by Marko Kolanovic. They pointed to the closely watched American Association of Individual Investors survey hitting the most-bearish mark since early March 2009. That month marked the S&P 500’s bottom from the global financial crisis.

Fears of an economic slowdown, persistently high inflation and an increasingly aggressive tightening rhetoric by Fed officials have weighed on risk appetite. While many strategists don’t exclude a respite after the recent stock selloff, there’s also a degree of skepticism that a rally would last given the current set of risks.

Other News

The world’s largest bottle of scotch–which contains the equivalent of 444 standard bottles–could also break the record for the most expensive bottle ever sold when it goes to auction this month, auctioneers said.

The bottle, dubbed The Intrepid, contains 86 gallons of 32-year-old single-malt Scotch whisky from Macallan, one of the oldest and most renowned distilleries in Scotland, and was bottled last year.

Measuring about 5’11″–taller than most men–and twice as wide, the bottle was certified by Guinness World Records as being the largest bottle of scotch, whisky or whiskey in the world.

Edinburgh-based auction house Lyon & Turnbull told WalesOnline it hopes that the larger-than-life bottle will break the record for the most expensive bottle of whisky ever sold at auction.

The bottle would have to sell for more than the current record price of $1.9 million, the record set in 2019 for a bottle of Macallan 1926.

The Intrepid will go to auction May 25 along with a selection of standard and miniature-sized whisky bottles containing the same 1989 Macallan from two sister casks.

Auctioneers said 25% of any amount over $1.6 million will be donated to the Marie Curie charity, which supports people with terminal illnesses, according to WalesOnline.