Good morning,The local sharemarket is poised to open higher on Monday amid hopes inflation in the world’s biggest economy, the US, is cooling and signs China is beginning to relax its Covid-19 restrictions. ASX futures are pointing to a 0.6 per cent gain to 7204 points after a rollercoaster ride on global markets last week, which culminated in crypto darling FTX filing for bankruptcy on Friday in one of the highest profile collapses in the digital currency sector. The impending demise of FTX initially spooked investors, triggering a market sell-off earlier in the week. The crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy after traders rushed to withdraw $6bn from the platform within 72 hours and rival Binance walked away from a proposed rescue deal. But attention soon swung to the release of inflation data, prompting a market rally with US stocks posting their biggest gains in months. The benchmark S&P 500 jumped 0.9 per cent to 3992.93 on Friday. Among major ASX-listed companies convening annual meetings this week are Flight Centre, Medibank Private, Mineral Resources, Goodman Group, A2 Milk, Lendlease, Mirvac and AGL Energy, which holds its shareholder meeting on Tuesday. As Perry Williams writes today, Mike Cannon-Brookes is poised to win his stoush with AGL, and all four candidates put forward by the billionaire are in line to join the power giant’s board. Ahead of AGL’s annual general meeting on Tuesday, sources said the businessman was likely to prevail in the battle against chair Patricia McKenzie with the quartet of Mark Twidell, Kerry Schott, Christine Holman and John Pollaers joining as new directors. The election of all four directors at the Melbourne AGM – which requires 50 per cent of votes cast – would expand the board to nine members and raise new questions over the longevity of Ms McKenzie as chair. Goldman Sachs' joint global M&A chief Mark Sorrell told Joyce Moullakis in an interview, dislocated financing markets and a volatile economic climate are likely to weigh on global merger and acquisition activity until 2024, but despite the slump in deals this year's failure rates are in line with long-term averages. “You would expect a higher failure rate but actually, and we track this quite closely, the failure rate of deals that have signed is pretty much in line with long-term history,” he added. “Deals are taking slightly longer to close on average.” |