Australian shares are set to open higher after Wall Street reset records, led once again by blue-chip technology stocks Nvidia and Apple.

Futures indicate that the S&P/ASX 200 Index is set to open up 19 points or 0.2 per cent at the start of trade. That’s after major US indices advanced with the S&P 500 up to 0.4 per cent to 6693.75 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite up 0.7 per cent to 22,788.98.

Shares in Nvidia rose 4 per cent. The company said it would invest as much as $US100 billion ($150 billion) in OpenAI to support the building of new data centres and the infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence workloads. Apple extended its one-month surge to nearly 12 per cent with a 4.3 per cent advance. Its stock is nearing a record high as its market cap moves towards the $US4 trillion mark.

Iren, the Nasdaq-listed bitcoin miner founded by two former Macquarie executives, leapt 8.4 per cent, extending its rise over the last month to 95 per cent and lifting the market cap to $US11.4 billion.

Evercore ISI’s Julian Emanuel said that “odds that a bubble has begun are increasing”. However, he said he thinks there’s still a long way to go, given that AI adoption is modest, bullish sentiment is subdued, and cash on the sidelines, restrained use of margin and the gains in the markets’ leaders are far from what happened in the dotcom boom.

“Core strategy for investing in an AI bubble is to outright own magnificent seven AI enablers, adopters and adapters, and – with option volatilities on many of these leaders near post-pandemic lows – owning June 2026 upside calls for limited risk/theoretically unlimited reward participation.”

Market highlights

All US prices near 5.15pm New York time:

  • AUD +0.1% to US65.99¢
  • Bitcoin -2.1% to $US112,869
  • On Wall St: Dow +0.1% S&P +0.4% Nasdaq +0.7%
  • VIX +0.65 to 16.10
  • Gold +1.7% to $US3746.70 an ounce
  • Brent oil -0.1% to $US66.59 a barrel
  • Iron ore +0.1% to $US106.60 a tonne
  • 10-year yield: US 4.15% Australia 4.26%

Today’s agenda

A raft of global PMIs, both manufacturing and services for September, will be released on Tuesday in France, Germany, the UK and Europe as well as the US.

Top stories

Explosive AI growth a threat to Labor’s climate ambition | The huge demand for power from data centres will limit Australia’s emissions reduction goal, the Climate Change Authority says.

Nvidia to invest $150b in OpenAI for data centres | The investment is intended to help the artificial intelligence company build data centres with a capacity of 10 gigawatts of power using Nvidia’s chips to train and deploy models.

Regulator did not instruct La Trobe to halt online funds access | Clients remain locked out of their accounts after the $20 billion firm said it was forced to take its platform down to comply with ASIC.