ASX rebounds from heavy losses as US rate cut looms

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Australian share market rose sharply, though it only clawed back a fraction of yesterday's $57 billion sell-off. The ASX 200 followed Wall Street higher after some worse-than-expected job numbers led to increased speculation that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this month.

Transcript

00:00Well, there was a big improvement on the share market today as bank shares rebounded, offsetting

00:06losses elsewhere. And that drove the ASX and All Lords up by around 1%, which is a pretty

00:11sharp rise. Though it's only managed to claw back a fraction of this week's losses, particularly

00:17yesterday's $57 billion wipeout, which was the market's worst trading day in five months.

00:23So yesterday it was a bond sell-off which caused investors to panic as long-term borrowing

00:27costs for Japan, Germany, the US and UK surged to their highest level in decades over concerns

00:34about sticky inflation and government debt hitting new trillion dollar records. But today, none

00:39of that mattered because some new figures came out showing the US jobs market is looking

00:44a little bit shaky now, with job openings dropping to their lowest level since September last

00:49year. So it was another case of bad news for the economy equals great news for the share

00:54market, as the odds of the US Federal Reserve cutting interest rates this month have now

00:59surged to nearly 100%, which in turn drove stocks higher in the US, UK and Japan.

01:06US markets were also boosted by a 9% jump in Google's share price after it got off lightly

01:11in court as a judge ruled the tech giant doesn't need to be broken up. Though the Hang Seng and

01:16Shanghai Composite were sold off because the Chinese government will introduce new rules clamping

01:21down on speculation in the stock market. In commodities, gold is hovering near record

01:26highs while oil prices tanked as the OPEC plus cartel, which includes Russia and Saudi Arabia,

01:32are meeting this weekend to possibly increase their output targets. And finally, the Aussie

01:37dollar has slipped to 65.2 US cents. And that's finance.

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