Morning Wrap: ASX 200 to rise + S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq and gold at all-time highs

ASX 200 futures are up 19pts (+0.21%) as of 8:30 am AEST.

In a nutshell:

• S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq all closed at record highs

• Massive session for gold, rallying to another fresh all-time high and pushing past US$3,700 with ease

• Market sentiment and positioning indicators suggest the market isn't too stretched, with more room to run

Let's dive in.

S&P 500 SESSION CHART

S&P 500 slipped in early trade but trended higher to close at best levels (Source: TradingView)

OVERNIGHT MARKETS

• Major US benchmarks higher, with stocks closing near best levels

• S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq all at record highs (again)

• Gold prices surged through US$3,700 to another fresh record high

• Stocks continued to trend higher as the path of least resistance remains to the upside

• Despite the market's over 30% rally, positioning and sentiment indicators suggest there's still significant room for further upside, with Deutsche Bank noting that equity positioning is only moderately overweight.

• Goldman Sachs' sentiment indicator has been in negative territory for 29 consecutive weeks, and the AAII bull-bear spread recently only bounced back to zero

STOCKS

• Confusion reigns as Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee sparks tech company warnings in the US (WSJ)

• OpenAI and NVIDIA announce strategic partnership to deploy 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems (PR)

• Accenture, Infosys, and Cognizant seen as most vulnerable to Trump's new H1B visa policy (CNBC)

• ExxonMobil approves $6.8bn in funding for its 7th development project in Guyana (RT)

• Trump says Murdoch, Ellison, and Dell to be US investors in potential TikTok deal (FT)

• Samsung shares surge as Nvidia approves its advanced memory chips for AI accelerators (BBG)

• Porsche slows EV push, embraces hybrids, combustion engines amid financial hit (BBG)

• TARIFFS

• Trump's H-1B visa fee could force India's IT sector to overhaul its US project strategies (RT)

• Switzerland woos Trump with weapons and energy to lower tariffs, a new push (FT)

CENTRAL BANKS

• Fed Governor Miran says current policy stance is very restrictive, sees appropriate fed funds rate in mid-2% range (FED)

• St. Louis' Musalem supported 25 bp cut as a precautionary move, but sees limited room for further easing, wouldn't support more cuts if inflation risks increase (BBG)

• Bank of Japan plans century-long ETF offload as Nikkei hits record high (BBG)

ECONOMY

• France replaces Italy as the Eurozone's fiscal flash-point amid political crisis (BBG)

ASX TODAY

• A pretty quiet morning so far from a headline perspective, will take a look at some of the investor presentations (market as price sensitive) from Nuix, SiteMinder on the blog

• Index rebalance: Catapult Sports (CAT) replaces Gold Road Resources (GOR) in the S&P/ASX 200 prior to open on 29-Sep

• Gold Road to delist following Gold Fields acquisition, Gold Field will inherit 49m shares in Northern Star and pay seek to sell down the entire stake (The Aus)

WHAT TO WATCH TODAY

• Gold and silver: What a session. Gold up 1.6% to US$3,744 and silver up 2.1% to US$44.0. This drove the Global X Silver Miners ETF (SIL) up 3.5% and VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) up 2.7% overnight. Considering how hard our gold miners rallied on Monday (most up 4-8%), you could see a little exhaustion today. Nevertheless, prices are going absolutely parabolic (US$4,000 by year end doesn't sound all that crazy eh?).

BROKER MOVES

• Amcor initiated Sector perform with $13.60 target (RBC)

• Generation Development Group initiated Buy with $8.20 target (BP)

• Platinum Asset Management downgraded to Hold from Buy; target up to $0.70 from $0.60 (BP)

• Santos reinstated Buy with $8.25 target (GS)

• Vault Minerals downgraded to Neutral from Buy; target cut to $0.72 from $0.75 (UBS)

Stocks trading ex-dividend: 

• Tue 23 Sep: Ipd Group (IPG) – $0.062, Southern Cross Electrical Engineering (SXE) – $0.05, WT Financial Group (WTL) – $0.005

• Wed 24 Sep: Genesis Energy (GNE) – $0.065, IMDEX (IMD) – $0.01

• Thu 25 Sep: Ambertech (AMO) – $0.006, PRL Global (PRG) – $0.02, Salter Brothers Emerging Companies (SB2) – $0.02, Teaminvest Private Group (TIP) – $0.015, Verbrec (VBC) – $0.001, Wiseway Group (WWG) – $0.006

• Fri 26 Sep:, SRG Global (SRG) – $0.03, Veris (VRS) – $0.002

Other ASX corporate actions today: 

• Dividends paid: Australian Clinical Labs (ACL), Deterra Royalties (DRR), IPH (IPH), Meridian Energy (MEZ), Redox (RDX), Sequoia Financial (SEQ), Smartgroup (SIQ)

• Earnings: Myer (MYR)

• IPOs: Everlast Minerals (EV8) at 12:00 pm

• AGMs: Liontown Resources (LTR)

Economic calendar (AEST):

• 9:00 am: Australia S&P Global Manufacturing and Services PMI (Sep)

• 5:30 pm: Germany Manufacturing and Services PMI Flash (Sep)

• 6:30 pm: UK S&P Global Manufacturing and Services PMI (Sep)

• 11:45 pm: US S&P Global Manufacturing and Services PMI (Sep)