Energy, miners to push ASX higher

THE Australian sharemarket is set to lift at Monday’s open, with energy majors tipped to be among those pushing higher, after US and European markets staged a stunning turnaround on Friday.

SPI futures are pointing to a 0.8 per cent gain at the open ahead of a big data week that includes crucial wage and unemployment figures.

The expected rise locally comes after US markets gained between 1.5 and 3.8 per cent on Friday.

Investor sentiment was late in the week buoyed by comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell suggesting the central bank will stick with rate rises of 50 basis points at the top end, rather than the feared 75bps.

Energy, financials and iron ore miners should be among those enjoying gains on the ASX through Monday, CommSec senior economist Ryan Felsman said.

“We should see energy shares up after oil prices rose about 4 per cent on Friday. This is after we saw gasoline prices hit record highs in the US at the end of last week,” Mr Felsman said.

“We also saw China beginning to look at easing some pandemic restrictions around its lockdown as cases come back a little bit. So that provides some support around demand for crude and the energy majors should get a kick tomorrow on the back of that.”

Brent on Friday jumped 3.8 per cent to settle at $US111.55 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude gained 4.1 per cent to $US110.49.

Stability in the iron ore market, meanwhile, should boost Australia’s big miners on Monday, after the iron ore price rose 0.6 per cent to $US130.93 a tonne on Friday.

Looking ahead, first-quarter wages data, out on Wednesday, and employment data for April, due Thursday, will be closely watched.