ASX futures pointed downwards for the local bourse, shedding 8 points or 0.1% to 7,333 early this morning, while the dollar lost 0.8% to sit at 66.92 US cents.
On Wall Street, the markets were slightly up, with the Dow, the S&P and the Nasdaq all adding 0.1%.
A swathe of S&P 500 companies are due to release their first-quarter results this week, including big guns like Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).
With 18% of companies having reported to date, analysts are warning of an earnings decline. FactSet’s John Butters estimates that the blended earnings decline for this quarter is tracking at -6.2%, which would mark “the largest decline reported by the index since Q2 2020 (-31.6%)”.
CPI quarterly data to drop soon
Meanwhile, Australian investors are waiting on first-quarter CPI data, which is set to drop on Wednesday. The news is widely expected to confirm that inflation peaked in the final quarter of 2022 – at least, that’s the hope.
The NAB predicts that headline inflation will sit at 1.3% quarter on quarter, and 7% year on year, taking inflation off the 7.8% year-on-year figure we saw in the December quarter.
If this holds true, it will prove out the case for the RBA to pause rate rises, at least for May.
In the US, the index of common inflation expectations, set up by economists on the Federal Reserve board in 2020, fell last quarter to its lowest point since June 30, 2021, when it measured 2.18%.
The index covers more than 20 indicators measuring the attitudes of economists, forecasters, consumers and investors towards future price rises.
It registered at 2.22% at the end of last quarter – down from 2.31% in the December quarter – and has been trending down for three quarters straight.
Closure of Liddell
After more than half a century in operation, the AGL-owned Liddell power station in the Hunter Valley is set to close, with the remaining three turbines at the coal-fired plant to wind down on Friday.
The closure has been some time in the planning – having been announced in 2015 – and isn’t expected to cause any disruptions to the grid.
A staggered phase-out saw the first of four generators permanently shut down a year ago.
The ageing power station had not been pulling its weight in recent years, putting about 600 megawatts of its 1500-megawatt capacity into the grid. At full output, Liddell’s contribution to the NSW electricity network was around 7.5%.
Also on the energy front, the Australian Government looks set to extend the contentious $12-per-gigajoule price cap on wholesale prices for east coast gas producers, which was due to expire in December, despite industry pressure and concerns that a weak investment environment will freeze new supply.
In other news
Copper, gold and silver were all pointing in the right direction at the close of play last week, with gold up 2.80%, silver up 0.08% and copper bringing up the rear, up 0.01%.
The Stoxx 50 added 0.5%, the FTSE was up 0.2% and the CAC added 0.5%, as did the DAX.
Brent crude was up 0.7% to $US81.66 a barrel, while iron ore slumped 6.3% to $US108.10 a tonne.