The Overnight Report: Dow Rocks New Record

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US markets continue to elevate with the Dow Jones reaching a fresh all time high as investors continued to rotate out of technology stocks into financials, laggards and value plays.

Australian investors have also been rotating out of tech into resource stocks with lithium the star sector yesterday. ASX200 futures are pointing to a positive start.

Good Morning,

The ASX200 rose 0.2% to 8,836 on Wednesday with lithium stocks taking commodities and mining stocks higher, while technology stocks weighed (again) with the sector down -2.9%.

October labour data are set to be released at 11.30am AEST.

What happened overnight, NAB Markets Today Research

The House is expected to vote in the next few hours to back a package to reopen the US government through January 30 and fund some federal agencies through next September.

The package passed the Senate Monday night. The Trump administration urged every lawmaker to back the measure and committed in writing today that Trump will sign the bill once it is passed.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the October jobs report and CPI will “likely never being released”. Leavitt has previously said the October CPI was in jeopardy, but this was the first time she had called the October jobs data into question.

It wasn’t clear whether that was in reference to the whole jobs report or part of it. Payrolls reporting and collections is less impacted than the unemployment rate, which relies on a survey of households. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said his hope is that flight restrictions would be lifted within a week.

In equity markets, the S&P500 is little changed. Most shares in the S&P500 gained, but the Nasdaq is down almost -0.3% lower. Big tech underperformed again, with a gauge of the magnificent 7 down -1.2%. The Dow Jones index is up 0.7% to a fresh record high closing above 48,000. The StoxxEurope600 finished Wednesday at a record high.

US 10yr yields were -6bp lower at 4.07%, but the move largely came the prior day when cash bond markets were closed with the 10-year rate over the past 24 hours tracking between 4.05-4.09% and currently sitting towards the bottom end of that range.

Atlanta Fed President Bostic announced he plans to retire at the end of his current term in February. The Atlanta Fed President does not have a voting position on the FOMC until 2027. Speaking later in the day, Bostic said that “despite shifts in the labor market, the clearer and urgent risk is still price stability.”

Bostic’s replacement does not need to be nominated by the White House or confirmed by the Senate, they are recommended by the regional Fed Board and endorsed by the Board of Governors. More broadly, the Board of Governors is next scheduled to authorize all current regional reserve bank presidents in a once-in-five-year exercise in February.

Separately, the US Supreme Court scheduled arguments for on President Donald Trump’s effort to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook for January 21.

Net currency movements have been modest over the past 24 hours. The AUD was 0.3% higher, towards the top of the G10 pack. The intraday low of 0.6516 came in our afternoon yesterday and the currency currently sits not far from its intraday high of 0.6550 at 0.6544. NZD was 0.2% higher, the EUR was little changed at 1.1589, while the yen underperformed, down -0.4% and sending USDJPY up to 154.71.

Japanese PM Takaichi yesterday said monetary policy is vital for establishing a strong economy and stable inflation and noted the government and the BoJ will continue to “work together for the development of the economy.”

Australian labour market data is the highlight today. Trend employment growth has slowed this year despite the pickup in growth, and the unemployment rate has bled higher.

We don’t expect the unemployment rate to continue rising after a 2 tenths jump in September and look for a tick back down to 4.4% in October on a 20k employment gain, in line with consensus.

The RBA’s November SoMP forecast saw the unemployment rate plateauing at 4.4%.

Manhattan Project of the AI Age, Stephen Innes, SPI Asset Management

Gold will soon be latching on to a new narrative, and it isn’t inflation. It’s a national ambition.

What we’re witnessing isn’t just a tech cycle or a valuation bubble; it’s a wartime mobilization of capital, disguised as innovation.

The AI boom has become the modern Manhattan Project, a government-sponsored arms race where compute replaces uranium, power grids stand in for enrichment plants, and liquidity has become the new fissile material.

The parallels are unmistakable. The original Manhattan Project didn’t seek profits; it sought supremacy. Its architects —Oppenheimer, Groves, Fermi— were not chasing shareholders; they were chasing a cause.

The same is true today. The race is no longer for yield, but for dominance. The goal isn’t return on investment, it’s return on leadership. And, just as in 1943, the cost is secondary to the cause.

Washington has already crossed the Rubicon from regulation to national sponsorship. The Department of Energy’s loan office, once a sleepy climate-funding vehicle, is now the quiet armory of America’s digital war effort, with hundreds of billions earmarked for grid resilience, nuclear restarts, and AI-compatible transmission.

The CHIPS Act was just the down payment. What comes next will be far larger and far less accountable: a long-duration fiscal fusion of defense, technology, and energy under the patriotic banner of “AI leadership.”

And that’s exactly why gold is moving. The metal isn’t responding to inflation expectations or Fed dot plots; it’s responding to the mobilization of money itself. Every historical instance of government-directed capital from World War II war bonds to the 1960s space race has ended the same way: with currency dilution justified as national necessity. The AI age will be no different.

You can already see it in the bond market’s x-rays. The hyperscalers, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle are issuing debt like wartime contractors, not like tech firms. Spreads have widened to multi-year highs even as they sit on hundreds of billions in cash.

Oracle’s US$18 billion “Stargate” project for OpenAI, Meta’s US$27 billion “Hyperion,” Alphabet’s US$25 billion global issuance, these are not corporate bets; they’re quasi-sovereign missions. JPMorgan estimates US$5 trillion in global AI capex ahead, a sum so colossal it can only be financed through a blend of public markets, private credit, and government guarantees.

This is how gold reads the world: not through CPI, but through credibility. Each new fiscal initiative in the name of AI, each “strategic investment,” “loan guarantee,” or “innovation bond”, erodes the line between sound money and political money.

Gold, silver, and bitcoin are not diversions; they’re dissent — different languages saying the same thing: the next chapter of progress will be written in diluted ink.

The deeper irony is that AI, an invention born to optimize is birthing the most capital-inefficient project in human history. Data centers are consuming power at Cold-War levels, grid investment is exploding, and every national government is racing to subsidize it. The machine designed to save resources is forcing humanity to spend more of them than ever before.

And that’s why gold’s reaction feels almost sentient. It isn’t nostalgia; it’s instinct. When governments start speaking in existential tones, when competition becomes survival, and deficits become strategy, gold remembers what comes next. It remembers the 1940s, the 1970s, and every moment since when ambition outgrew discipline.

So yes, AI will change the world. However, the cost of changing the world remains constant: monetary trust. The next hyperscaler won’t be backed by venture capital; it’ll be backed by the U.S. Treasury. And the more the White House commits to “winning the future,” the more investors will quietly seek refuge in the one asset that remembers the past.

Gold’s bull market isn’t a trade. It’s a diagnosis.

Because in the end, the Manhattan Project didn’t just split the atom, it split faith in the idea that science could exist without politics. The AI age is about to split faith in the idea that technology can exist without debt.

And gold will be there, as always, to weigh the fallout.

Corporate news in Australia

-UK renewables developer Octopus Investments Australia is going forward with a $900m combined solar and storage project in NSW.

-EV charger Jolt will acquire up to 3k chargers across US retail sites, up from the 250 it currently operates in A&NZ, Canada and the UK.

-Bowen Basin gas producer Denison gas has started a non-deal roadshow and investors are looking at strategic options.

-Firmus Technologies is putting in place the pipeline to a Nasdaq 2026 $6bn IPO with backers Regal Partners ((RPL)) set to benefit.

-HealthEngine, medical appointment booking platform, is looking to IPO with a $200m valuation.

-Menulog is ceasing Australian operations after 20-years with -120 job cuts.

-Blackwattle Investment Partners is looking to raise $10m for growth and tech upgrades as it seeks profitability.

On the calendar today:

-AU Oct Unemployment Rate

-UK 3Q GDP

-US Oct Inflation

-ALKANE RESOURCES LIMITED ((ALK)) 1Q26 Update/Call

-ANZ GROUP HOLDINGS LIMITED ((ANZ)) ex-div 83c (70%)

-ARENA REIT ((ARF)) AGM

-AUB GROUP LIMITED ((AUB)) AGM

-ARTRYA LIMITED ((AYA)) AGM

-BANNERMAN ENERGY LIMITED ((BMN)) AGM

-CREDIT CLEAR LIMITED ((CCR)) AGM

-CITY CHIC COLLECTIVE LIMITED ((CCX)) AGM

-COMPUTERSHARE LIMITED ((CPU)) AGM

-CATALYST METALS LIMITED ((CYL)) AGM

-DICKER DATA LIMITED ((DDR)) ex-div 11c (100%)

-DPM METALS INC ((DPM)) 3Q update

-FUTURE GENERATION AUSTRALIA LIMITED ((FGX)) ex-div 3.6c (100%)

-GREATLAND RESOURCES LIMITED ((GGP)) AGM

-GENESIS MINERALS LIMITED ((GMD)) AGM

-GRAINCORP LIMITED ((GNC)) FY25 Result/Call

-GUZMAN Y GOMEZ LIMITED ((GYG)) AGM

-INFRATIL LIMITED ((IFT)) 1H26 Earnings/Call

-INGENIA COMMUNITIES GROUP ((INA)) AGM

-LIGHT & WONDER INC ((LNW)) Nasdaq Delisting

-LYCOPODIUM LIMITED ((LYL)) AGM

-NEXTDC LIMITED ((NXT)) AGM

-ORICA LIMITED ((ORI)) FY25 Result/Dividend

-PACIFIC CURRENT GROUP LIMITED ((PAC)) AGM

-PROPEL FUNERAL PARTNERS LIMITED ((PFP)) AGM

-PEXA GROUP LIMITED ((PXA)) AGM

-SGH LIMITED ((SGH)) AGM

-SUPERLOOP LIMITED ((SLC)) AGM

-SUNRISE ENERGY METALS LIMITED ((SRL)) AGM

-SERVCORP LIMITED ((SRV)) AGM

-SHAVER SHOP GROUP LIMITED ((SSG)) AGM

-STRIKE ENERGY LIMITED ((STX)) AGM

-XERO LIMITED ((XRO)) 1H26 Earnings

FNArena’s four-weekly calendar: https://fnarena.com/index.php/financial-news/calendar/

The Australian share market over the past thirty days…

For more detail go to FNArena’s Australian Broker Call Report, which is updated each morning, Mon-Fri.

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