The Good Morning Report

5 Things that Grabbed my Attention

1. CEO and CFO of Fortescue (FMG) quit this week....Lucky for Twiggy that iron ore has been going up or his stock would be getting thumped due to the uncertainty created from the departures..... 11 senior FMG  executives have left over the past few years.

2. Visa and Mastercard shares hit record highs as they plan to increase merchant fees and consumers increase borrowings.

3. Chinese manufacturing data came in BETTER than expected.

4. A Met COAL cargo was sold out of Newcastle for US$270 per ton....BUY SMR,YAL,CRN....Either ASX investors are not believing the jump in prices, or they don't yet know!

5. The biggest downside to COAL prices surging back up, is that we have to watch our bastard politicians continue to squander the money....It is absurd that our grid operator is warning of blackouts this summer when we are blessed with basically limitless amounts of energy.

ASX Market Update

ASX 200 up 7 points to 7305

Our market managed to hang on to the big gains made on Wednesday to close up slightly....IGO rallied 5.4%  after pleasing the market with its results. Even with the $968 million writedown of its Western Areas Nickel acquisition, the miner produced a NPAT of $549 mil. It was also good to see some solid dividends announced with a final of 44c fully franked and a special of 16c ff....IGO has been one of my best BUY recommendations over the past few years; important to have those big winners to offset against the duds.

Random Observation

You have got to hand it to the Xi Man don't you - getting prepared for a potential trade war.

Check this out for a forward-looking indicator -- customs data from China shows that chipmaking equipment imports in June and July combined to nearly $5bn, up 70% YoY from $2.9B.

July’s $2.69B total import value was nearly double May’s $1.37B, with imports from the Netherlands… pic.twitter.com/uaAlpGkasF

— Beth Kindig (@Beth_Kindig) August 29, 2023

The Day Ahead

• Our SPI is down 31 points
• Bitcoin down 3% to $26,327

Movements affecting our resource stocks today (USD)

• BHP in the US down 0.44%
• Newmont down 0.92%
• Gold down 0.27% to $1967
• Paper Silver down 1.09% to $24.83
• Platinum down 0.65% to $976
• Copper FLAT @ $3.79
• Brent Crude up 1.3% to $86.83
• Iron ore up 1.5% to $113.95

Asian Market Update

Japan up 0.88%, China down 0.55%, Hong Kong fell 0.5%

Another big surge in GLASS futures in China.....Coking Coal also up again.

⚡Most Chinese commodities open higher on Thursday. Glass jumps another 6.5% after a big rally yesterday.#IronOre rises by 2%, #steel rebar +1%.#Aluminum +1.44%, #tin +1.23%, #nickel and #zinc 0.5%, #copper +0.4%.
Crude oil +1.26% to 645 yuan per barrel in INE. #OOTT https://t.co/2wTB2tOn1S pic.twitter.com/mP9CmJv1HR

— CN Wire (@Sino_Market) August 31, 2023

Global Market Update

US Market

DOW down 168 points to 34,721

Just no need to be invested in financials.....

European Markets

Germans up 0.35%, Brits down 0.46%, Frenchies fell 0.65%

Gabon should be a very rich country with just a population of 2.4 million, but 33% live in absolute poverty....The people have had enough so are very supportive of this coup; the FRENCH are being booted out of West Africa.

🇬🇦⛏️ #Gabon has more than 2 billion tonnes of iron ore, over 40 tonnes of proven gold reserve – and a range of other rare-earth minerals including lead, zinc, copper, diamonds, niobium, and titanium. https://t.co/4NtUQT9P5R

— Prof. Michael Tanchum (@michaeltanchum) August 30, 2023