ASX will be opening in about 35 minutes time. What I frequently do as a quick reference is look at AUDUSD to give a heads up on expected direction, just only as a very short term bellwether. The ASX is basically a commodities market. The banks NAB, ANZ, WBC, CBA hold the largest market caps and basically overwhelm the indexes, but the commodities overwhelm the ASX with their sheer quantity numbers and BHP & RIO are too global heavyweights.
AUD down in the bottom RH corner of Finviz web site. Today so far showing flat to slightly negative. Uranium stocks on ASX, there are several, should go gangbusters today. The way I see it, gold futures propping up commodities while copper is negative, so balancing each other out on the ASX.
The opinion in todays news is ASX to have another down day. I'm picking we are near bottom of this month, we should imo begin to rise from here. When it comes to looking at a market index as a bellwether on sentiment, I prefer to use the Small Caps index, in this instance, XSO.AX. Also once again uranium will be gangbusters, similar to yesterday. Uranium stock ASX
ASX is a sick puppy atm, I don't see anything much to buy, but I did add a small bite today to PNR.AX Pantoro @ 4.7c, It's the only gold stock I own. I'm gambling on gold price swinging up from this point. Actually I tell a lie, I hold NVA.AX Nova Minerals but I think its more a copper stock, NVA I'm a bagholder and I just don't bother looking at it anymore, I bought in Jun 21 at $1.40, small position at $2k. Nearly every gold penny stock I've ever bought have been dogs, just hoping PNR doesn't join the pack, but my wife, a gold bug, she likes PNR and has researched it, reckons its a bargain atm, other than that, I wouldn't bother with it.
I always notice that the ASX, AUD & Copper prices all seem to go in the same direction. Is the main export of Australia Copper? It would make sense.
# Commodity Value (A$ million) % share of exports 1 Iron ores & concentrates 61,357 15.2 2 Coal 60,356 15.0 3 Education[a] 32,434 8.0 4 Natural gas 30,907 7.7 5 Personal travel (excl education) services 21,580 5.4 6 Gold 19,293 4.8 7 Aluminium ores & concentrates (incl alumina) 9,448 2.3 8 Beef 7,963 2.0 9 Petroleum 6,507 1.6 10 Copper ores & concentrates 5,720 1.4 11 Professional services 4,211 1.3 12 Wheat 4,652 1.2 13 Financial services 4,574 1.1 14 Meat (excl beef) 4,526 1.1 15 Technical & other business services 4,262 1.1 16 Telecom, computer & information services 4,173 1.0 17 Aluminium 4,097 1.0 WIKI Iron Ore trumps everything, coal may begin to wane, aluminium, they just are shutting down a major old refinery announced last week, wheat is always there, we have plenty of land and good weather, heaps of gold mines, often copper is a byproduct but a large copper mine Oz Minerals in South Australia recently purchased by Newmont. Queensland and NSW are the main coal states.
Liquidity is good imo on stocks and spreads tight, I don't trade futures. The symbol for ASX200 is 'SPI.AX' but imo its weird, try finding SPI.AX data and charts on the internet, nigh on impossible, it can be found at https://au.investing.com/indices/australia-200-futures. Also on barcharts.com under: https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/AP*0/interactive-chart Broker fees on ASX imo are outrageously high, the ASX basically have a monopoly here and like a fox guarding the henhouse are self listed on the ASX. The ASX also owns the SFE (Sydney Futures Exchange). In 2006 the Australian Stock Exchange merged with the Sydney Futures Exchange to become the Australian Securities Exchange. Its official name is ASX Limited. There are approx 2500 odd stocks on ASX, lots of ETF's, also funds like realestate listed funds and money funds and what I term obscure stock options, mainly I think from speculative mining companies. My observation of the ASX compared to USA markets, it's primitive. The technology is primitive, the choices primitive. But mining stocks is a little bit like the Wild West, quite volatile and can go gangbusters at times, that's why I view trading here an arcade game, a casino, gambling den. The main stock forum (like et) here is called 'Hotcopper'. Now imagine you are living in the 1800's, you live in Hillbilly Town, you are clueless, you are fallible to pump and dumpers, you carry a six shooter on your hip and chew bacca, that's hotcopper.