ASX set to rise as Wall Street surges; 23andMe files for bankruptcy

Tesla climbed 9.9 per cent for the biggest gain among S&P 500 stocks. The electric vehicle maker is still down about 30 per cent for the year. It has been struggling on worries that customers are turned off by CEO Elon Musk’s leading efforts to slash spending by the US government.

Genetics testing company 23andme lost more than half its value after it announced over the weekend that it had initiated voluntary bankruptcy proceedings.

AZEK Co. jumped 14.7 per cent after the building materials company announced it was being bought by Australia’s James Hardie Industries in a cash-and-stock deal valued around $US8.75 billion ($14 billion).

It’s the second large deal in the sector in less than a week, with QXO Inc. announcing on Thursday that it was buying Beacon Roofing Supply Inc. in a deal worth about $US11 billion, including debt.

In the bond market, Treasury yields rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.31 per cent from 4.25 per cent late Friday.

Markets in Europe and Asia were mixed.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang struck a conciliatory tone during a meeting with business leaders and US Senator Steve Daines, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, who is the first member of Congress to visit Beijing since Trump took office in January.

Wall Street has several economic updates this week. Business group The Conference Board releases its consumer confidence survey for March on Tuesday. Wall Street expects the survey to show a slight dip in consumer confidence.

On Friday, the US government releases the personal consumption expenditures price index for February. It is a measure of inflation closely watched by the Federal Reserve.

Recent economic reports have shown that the underlying economy remains strong, but that consumers are becoming more worried and cautious. They have also shown that inflation remains stubborn.

Stubborn inflation has prompted more caution from the Fed, which started cutting its benchmark interest rate at the end of 2024. Those cuts came after the central bank raised interest rates in order to cool inflation from a two-decade high.

Several measures of inflation show that interest rates remain just above the Fed’s goal of 2 per cent. The US trade war with its key trading partners has threatened to reignite inflation and the Fed is holding off on further cutting interest rates to see how inflation and the broader economy reacts.

Lower interest rates can ease borrowing costs and help give the economy a boost, but they can also push inflation higher.