Rise and Shine: Everything you need to know before the ASX opens

Good morning everyone and welcome to Rise and Shine on Monday, July 21, 2025. Here’s what you should know before the ASX opens today…

At 7am AEST, ASX futures were up 0.1%, pointing to a decent start for the local bourse on Tuesday.

Here’s what went down while we were all tucked in…

S&P cracks 6300 for the first time

Overnight, the rally that sent the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to fresh highs fizzled fast into the final hour of trade. Still, it was enough to make history.

The S&P 500 edged up 0.14% to close just above the 6,300 mark for the first time ever (at 6,306).

And the Nasdaq climbed 0.38% to a new record thanks to a familiar cast of characters – Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Apple.

Big Tech is about to take centre stage this week, with Alphabet and Tesla set to kick off the Magnificent Seven earnings parade on Wednesday.

All eyes are on whether results can justify those frothy valuations, or whether we’re just reliving a 2000s-style déjà vu with AI instead of dotcoms.

Trade tensions are simmering again too. President Trump’s tariff clock is ticking with an August 1 “hard stop” now locked in.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reckons it’s quality over quantity when it comes to deals. No one’s sure what that means, but markets are bracing.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s feeling twitchy. Their note yesterday warned momentum trades like Nvidia and Coinbase are getting too crowded.

“It presents a red flag for the broader market,” strategist Dubravko Lakos-Bujas wrote.

In other words, when everyone’s on the same train, check where the brakes are.

But AI is still hot

Big Tech’s AI binge is fuelling a data centre land grab like never before.

TD Cowen’s Mike Elias says the current hyperscale leasing pipeline is the “largest we have seen in history.”

Oracle, for instance, is snapping up land in New Mexico and Missouri to build capacity for OpenAI. Google and Amazon are ramping too.

Meanwhile, the rally in AI stocks continues, though JPMorgan, as we said, is flashing some warning lights.

Nvidia, Palantir, and Coinbase have all hit “100th percentile” crowding levels, the highest in 30 years.

Gold glitters as tariffs loom

Gold climbed to a five-week high overnight, trading just below US$3,400/oz as the US dollar slipped and tariff uncertainty returned to the headlines.

Trump’s latest push for blanket tariffs on EU goods is rattling markets, with Brazil openly admitting it might not reach a deal in time.

The US dollar index dropped below 98, making gold more attractive for foreign buyers.

The metal is still about US$100 off its all-time high, but traders say the Aug 1 trade deadline could be the spark to push it higher.

Ether gets love, too

It’s not just Bitcoin anymore, Ethereum is quietly joining the big leagues.

Coinbase Global, which already holds US$440 million in crypto, says more companies will soon be adding Ethereum to their balance sheets.

BitMine Immersion Technologies, chaired by crypto bull Tom Lee, is already buying up ETH as a bet on the future of decentralised finance.

Trump Media & Technology Group made headlines too, announcing it now holds US$2 billion in Bitcoin and related assets – that’s two-thirds of its total assets.

The company’s stock climbed 5% last night as investors digested the news.

And finally…

Back home, the big focus will be the RBA’s minutes from its latest meeting, due at 11.30am AEST.

That’s the one where they surprised everyone by keeping rates on hold.

Markets will be scanning every word for hints on the interest rate path, especially after the latest soft jobs data took some wind out of the hawkish sails.

Commodity/forex/crypto market prices

What got you talking

Also in the news…

Tony Rovira has made a career out of finding world class deposits hiding in plain sight. Could the former Azure Minerals chief find his timing is just as perfect at his new explorer Solara Minerals (ASX:SLA)?

Health Check: On Lamington Day, biotechs serve up their chocolate-dipped quarterly morsels.

Hot Money Monday: Proteomics brings science to racehorse recovery, as animal health booms.

ASX Copper Tier List: Part 2 – who’s best positioned for the upswing?

Trading Halts

• Perpetual Resources (ASX:PEC) – pending exploration results
• Strike Energy (ASX:STX) – cap raise
• Carnarvon Energy (ASX:CVN) – pending strategic investment
• Meteoric Resources (ASX:MEI) – cap raise
• Iperionx (ASX:IPX) – cap raise
• Amplia Therapeutics (ASX:ATX) – cap raise
• Elsight (ASX:ELS) – cap raise

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Terra Metals is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.