Company Interview / the open: ASX set to rise, ALP's landslide victory

The Australian sharemarket is set to start the week on a positive note, following a rally on Wall Street, and the emergence of a trade deal closing in between the US and China. 

ASX futures were pointing up 0.4 per cent, anticipating that the S&P/ASX 200 Index will open at 8280 points. 

Wall Street's indexes all finished up more than 1% each, with the S&P 500 reaching its longest daily winning streak in over 20 years. The S&P and Dow gained 3%, and the Nasdaq rose 3.5% for the week. 

Amazon shares dipped slightly after the company reported first-quarter cloud revenue growth and projected operating income, both of which fell short of analysts’ expectations. On the other hand, fellow Mag Seven stocks, Meta and Nvidia both rose. 

The Australian dollar climbed to 64.6 following a decisive election outcome that saw the Labor government re-elected with an increased majority. Bitcoin is currently trading close to $96,000. 

This week the focus will be on the banks’ half-year earnings results from ANZ (ASX: ANZ), NAB (ASX: NAB) and Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG). This comes after Westpac revealed an interim profit of $3.5 billion this morning, which is down 1% in a slight miss on market forecasts.