Good morning and welcome to another week on the ABC markets and finance blog.

Stephen Letts from ABC business team limbering up for blow-by-blow coverage of the day’s events, where every post is hopefully a winner, but none should be construed as financial advice.

The ASX looks like having a fairly torpid start to the week with futures markets pricing in a 0.2% slide on opening, despite Wall Street’s solid end to the week.

Heading into Monday’s Labor Day break, trading was a bit lighter than usual but the S&P 500 still gained 1%, while the Nasdaq put on 1.1%.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Index was less robust, up 0.6%, but that was still good enough for a second consecutive record close.

The main news was two-fold; a solid increase in consumer spending (+0.5% in July) coupled with moderate inflation (PCE core inflation +0.2 in July, 2.6% YOY).

That “goldilocks” result changed the betting on next month’s US Federal Reserve meeting with a 25bp cut now back to being the clear favourite result and an outsized 50bp cut dimming as a prospect.

It also steadied the US dollar and as a consequence, the Australian dollar edged back below 68 US cents.

Markets were subdued in Europe with the broad Eurostoxx index edging up 0.1% while the UK’s FTSE was flat.

On commodity markets, oil slipped (Brent crude -1.4%, WTI -3.1%) as the OPEC+ cartel’s decision to boost production by 180,000 barrels a day from October struck the collective consciousness of the market.

Gold had a breather, down 0.7%, but is still hovering around record levels at $US2,500/ounce.

Looking to today’s news, we’re already seen the latest home value data from CoreLogic with prices rising nationally 0.5% across the nation.

We’ll flesh that out in a jiffy.

The ABS will release another batch of GDP partials (11:30am AEST) with Q2 business indicators, namely inventories and company profits.

The final piece of the puzzle, Q2 balance of payments, is out tomorrow before Wednesday’s release of the national accounts, but that will be someone else’s problem.

Building approvals for July are also out at 11:30am.

Oh, and then there is the rolling crisis that is the casino operator Star Entertainment, currently trying to get some more cash from its investors — actually a lot of cash.

It’s currently in a trading halt and trying to post its results this morning (once the directors sign-off on the annual accounts) — last roll of the dice?

OK, the game’s afoot, so as the Bard would say, let’s get blogging.

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