ASX News LIVE | XJO to Rise with Mining and Energy Stocks, Microsoft Hits Record High after Hiring Open AI’s Sam Altman

The ASX 200 is holding onto its early small gains today, up by 0.21% at 7,073.0 as mining and energy stocks hold fast while the other sectors fall.

Materials have seen the biggest gains, up 1.67%, while Energy is up 0.25%, tracking with gains in oil prices.

In big company moves today, Star Entertainment Group is up 2.8% after the embattled casino operator formally signed an agreement with the NSW government on its revised tax rates.

Brickworks fell by -2.82% despite a strong result in FY23. The company increased its dividend to make the final year payout 65 cents per share.

The biggest gainers on the benchmark were Sandfire Resources (+4.84%) and Liontown Resources (+4.80%), while other lithium players also saw gains across the board.

Fortescue also announced its final investment decision on its US hydrogen project, Phoenix Hydrogen, as well as other green initiatives.

‘The Phoenix Hydrogen Hub establishes Fortescue in one of the most attractive energy markets in the world, facilitated by the Inflation Reduction Act,’ Fortescue Energy chief executive Mark Hutchinson said in a statement.

Here’s a great chart showing the impact of the successive rate hikes on Australian loan holders.

This is a truly astounding chart from @Gavekal

Despite rocketing rates, Canada's household debt service ratio now is similar to Australia's when we had a 0.1% cash rate.

Australia truly is worlds apart from most nations. pic.twitter.com/YoWhxpm1GE

— Tarric Brooker aka Avid Commentator 🇦🇺 (@AvidCommentator) November 20, 2023

Australia’s largest enterprise resource planning software company, Technology One [ASX:TNE] released its financial results for the year up to 30 September 2023.

The SaaS company reported a boost to its profits after tax of +16% to $129.9 million. It also gained 19% in revenue to $441.4 million.

That’s the fourteenth year of consecutive record profits for the company.

Commenting on the results, CEO Ed Chung said:

‘With strong results and a confidence in our sales pipeline, we made additional investments in all our pillars for growth to enable us to continue to double in size every five years beyond $500 million ARR. In R&D we increased investment by 21% to accelerate the development of our ground-breaking digital Experience Platform.’

The company’s deals recently have been focused on local government, with the company signing five major deals with a total contract value of more than $23 million.

Microsoft hit record highs in trading overnight as it finished at the top of the pile in the dust-up over the future of Open AI.

The turmoil and Open AI started on Friday when the board unexpectedly fired CEO Sam Altman for ‘loss of confidence over communication‘.

Since then, investors have tried to get him reinstated to the company after outrage at his sudden firing. Major investor Microsoft has since offered Mr Altman and fellow executive Greg Brockman, and a host of other employees jobs at Microsoft.

The team will start a new advanced AI team that will likely continue the work of Open AI.

Microsoft has promised investments of around US$13 billion to Open AI, but it is unclear what the future interactions will be between the two teams.

Good morning all, Charlie here

The ASX 200 opened up 0.28% to 7,078.1, continuing its climb along with oil prices. Strength on Wall St should also help lift today with Tech stocks climbing on bullish news.

Microsoft reset new record highs after news it hired the recently fired CEO of Open AI, Sam Altman.

Wall Street: Dow +0.58%, Nasdaq +1.13%, S&P 500 +0.74%

Overseas: FTSE -0.11%, STOXX flat, Nikkei -0.59%, SSE +0.46%

The Aussie dollar rose +0.72% to US 65.63 cents.

US 10-year bond yield -2bps at 4.42%. Australian 10-year bond yields +1bps to 4.48%.

Gold is up +0.21% today to US$1,979.2. Silver is down -0.68% to US$23.46.

Bitcoin is up +0.57% to US$37,611.56. Ethereum gained +1.50% to US$2,030.48

Oil prices are up again today as bets of extended oil cuts from OPEC come in, the price is still a long way from recovering from deep drops in October. Brent gained +1.77% to US$82.04, while WTI Crude gained +2.25% to US$77.60 after bouncing from lows.

Iron ore gained +1.71% to US$130.70 on the Singapore futures benchmark, supported by the 1 trillion yuan Chinese stimulus which is focusing on steel heavy industries.