Chevron leads Dow industrials to new record; BlueScope carve-up mooted
European defence companies were back on the rise.
Oil major Chevron led Wall Street’s Dow Jones Industrial Average to new heights as energy stocks rallied after the US ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and US President Donald Trump promised to revive the nation’s oil production with the help of American firms.
The ratcheting up of geopolitical risk buoyed defence stocks on both sides of the Atlantic, with BAE Systems, Rheinmetall and Thales bolstering European stock markets and Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin among US firms to gain.
Meanwhile, Australian futures are pointing to a perky start to the day for the ASX, while BlueScope Steel confirmed reports that Kerry Stokes’ SGH and Nasdaq-listed Steel Dynamics are circling the steelmaker with plans to carve it up.
And the Organisation for Economic Cooperative and Development bowed to pressure from the Trump administration’s threat of revenge taxes in carving out US multinationals from an updated deal on setting global minimum taxes to clamp down on avoidance.
Big oil
Stocks in Europe and the US rallied after the weekend regime change in oil-rich Venezuela, when a US military operation snatched President Nicolas Maduro to stand trial in New York on narco-terrorism charges.
US President Donald Trump pledged to revive the nation’s oil infrastructure with American firms’ money and know-how, with reports that White House officials told oil executives they need to act quickly if they want compensation for assets taken by Venezuela two decades ago.
ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil left the nation when the sector was nationalised, while Chevron was among those to form joint ventures with the state-run PDVSA to stay in Venezuela.
Brent crude oil futures were up 1.6% at US$61.71 a barrel at 7am in Auckland, while Chevron climbed 5.7% to lead the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average index to a new record, with broad gains on Wall Street.
Locally, Genesis Energy owns a stake in the Kupe oil and gas field, while Skellerup Holdings supplies components to the oil and gas industry.
The Dow industrials index was up 1.6% in late trading, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were both up 0.8%.
Might is right up there
Defence companies were also among gainers on the day, with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin rising in New York, while BAE Systems, Thales and Rheinmetall were among the leaders on the other side of the Atlantic as the UK’s FTSE 100 rose 0.5%, Germany’s DAX 30 climbed 1.3% and France’s CAC 40 advanced 0.2%.
Miners including Freeport-McMoran gained with gold futures rising 2.9% to US $4,454 an ounce and Bitcoin jumped 3.4% to US$94,327 as the digital currency bounced back from a slump in 2025. a
Bitcoin holder Strategy was up 3.5% despite reporting a fourth-quarter loss on the declining value of the crypto currency through the period. Local software firm Locate Technologies – which uses a Bitcoin treasury strategy – dropped 4.1% on the NZX yesterday.
Meanwhile, the OECD agreed to carve out US multinationals from paying certain taxes in its efforts to clamp down on avoidance by setting a 15% floor that large firms would have to pay in each jurisdiction where they operate. The deal puts the US system on an equal footing with other nations’ minimum taxes to avoid US companies potentially facing higher taxes because their domestic rates were too low.
The kiwi gained against a broadly softer greenback, climbing to 57.86 US cents at 7am in Auckland from 57.49 cents after data showed US manufacturing shrank in December.
Meanwhile, Australian futures are pointing to a 0.3% gain for the S&P/ASX 200 index when trading opens across the Tasman.
Fletcher Building, Steel & Tube Holdings and Vulcan Steel will be keenly watching BlueScope Steel after the company confirmed reports that Kerry Stokes’ SGH and Nasdaq-listed Steel Dynamics have made a conditional offer of A$30 a share, or A$13.1 billion, for the steel firm.
The consortium would spin out the North American operations for Steel Dynamics with SGH keeping the Australian and New Zealand businesses.
Reporting by Paul McBeth. Image from Luis Ramirez on Unsplash.
