Wall Street finished higher on Tuesday as traders increased their expectations of a December Federal Reserve rate cut and repositioned within the artificial intelligence sector. The Dow rose 1.43%, with the S&P 500 up 0.91% and the Nasdaq 0.67%, reversing earlier declines. Futures now imply an 83% chance of a quarter-point cut, helped by reports that Kevin Hassett is emerging as the leading candidate to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair—an appointment investors see as pointing toward a lower-rate stance. The AI trade also shifted, with Alphabet gaining 1.5% on reports that Meta may spend billions on its AI chips, while Nvidia fell more than 2% as investors weighed the prospect of rising competition. Alphabet has climbed more than 11% over the past week, while Nvidia has dropped about 4.5%, though the major indexes remain on track for a losing month.
Australian shares are set to open higher, with SPI 200 futures up 97 points, or 1.1%, to 8646 following the positive lead from Wall Street and a dip in the US 10-year yield below 4%. Attention locally turns to Wednesday’s monthly CPI indicator at 11.30am AEDT, with NAB expecting headline inflation of 3.6% year-on-year. Across the Tasman, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is anticipated to cut its cash rate by 25 basis points at midday AEDT. A busy day of annual meetings is also ahead for Harvey Norman, Liontown Resources, Lynas Rare Earths and Megaport.
In company news,
First Graphene secures exclusive global rights to graphene-enhanced carbon paste
First Graphene (ASX:FGR) has secured a 12-month exclusive global licence with Halocell Australia to develop, produce and sell graphene-enhanced carbon paste, already used in Halocell’s perovskite solar cells and shown to double efficiency while lowering production costs. The product forms part of an existing CRC-P collaboration and has broad applications across flexible electronics, IoT, sensors, heating systems, aerospace equipment and energy storage. Manufacturing will begin shortly at FGR’s Henderson facility. The agreement positions FGR to commercialise a product in a carbon-paste market expected to more than double to about US$2.8bn by 2032, while supporting Halocell’s roll-to-roll perovskite manufacturing ambitions.
Greenvale Energy secures $5m Farm-in to advance Millungera Basin geothermal project
Greenvale Energy (ASX:GRV) has entered a Farm-in Agreement with SRL Hot Rocks (a subsidiary of Sunrise Energy Metals) to advance the Millungera Basin Geothermal Project in north-west Queensland, one of Australia’s most prospective geothermal regions with an estimated 611,000 PJ of stored thermal potential. SRL-HR will sole-fund $5m of exploration and development in two stages to earn an 80% JV interest, enabling drilling and assessment to begin now that geothermal exploration permits and Native Title access agreements are secured. The deal allows Greenvale to redirect exploration resources toward its uranium portfolio while retaining exposure to a large prospective clean-energy asset.
HyTerra and GeoKiln to conduct world-first engineered geologic hydrogen well test
HyTerra (ASX:HYT) has signed a binding Joint Collaboration Agreement with GeoKiln to test MSSH™ (Manufactured Subsurface Hydrogen), a thermally engineered process designed to accelerate natural geological hydrogen reactions and enable predictable hydrogen generation underground. Over the next 12 months, the parties will integrate geological datasets, complete a field assessment and execute the world’s first controlled MSSH™ hydrogen-generation test in a wellbore, fully funded by GeoKiln. The collaboration reflects HyTerra’s hybrid strategy of targeting both natural and engineered geologic hydrogen to accelerate commercialisation and strengthen its competitive advantage in the emerging low-carbon hydrogen sector.
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