AU Morning Wrap: ASX rises 1.6%; ASIC sues Harvey Norman, Latitude

Wall Street Summary
The Nasdaq has led Wall Street higher as megacap growth and technology stocks gain and US Treasury yields decline amid growing investor speculation that the Federal Reserve will temper its aggressive rate hike path.

New orders for US-manufactured goods remained unchanged in August as expected while US job openings, a measure of labour demand, fell by the most in nearly two and a half-years in August.

Consumer discretionary sector led gains among the 11 S&P 500 sectors, rising more than 4.0 per cent.

Australian shares open Wednesday up taking lead from US markets overnight and extending the biggest sharemarket rally in two years after the RBA surprised the market by slowing pace of interest rate rises.

ANZ has extended the duration of the Reserve Bank's tightening cycle and lifted the interest rate peak after the central bank surprised economists with a 0.25 percentage point increase on Tuesday.

"... raw material prices are expected to remain firm and the demand is picking up at the peak demand season under the buoyant market sentiment,” Mysteel said in a note.

"Iron ore prices may strengthen along with steel products’ price trend, with increasing downstream demand from the construction sector, against the stable hot metal output under thin steelmaking profits."

• Oil prices extended gains after reports that OPEC+ is considering a cut as much as 2 million barrels per day. Brent crude is up almost 10% since the 26 September low of US$83.

"The Saudis run this show and they know oil prices are at a make-or-break level. Expectations were high that a significant reduction of output would be the outcome, now it seems it might be twice as large,” said Oanda senior market analyst, Ed Moya.

• Gold rallied past US$1,700 after the RBA surprised markets with a smaller-than-expected 25 bps rate hike.

"The RBA set the tone and now a lot of traders on Wall Street are expecting the Fed to soften their tightening pace," said Moya.