Our market will look to extend yesterday's late rally on the back of a big rally in US and European equities as earnings results and growing speculation of a delay in a US interest rate hike pushed key offshore indices up by over 1%.
The S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) is expected to make an early gain of 0.9% in sympathy, although energy stocks could struggle for traction as the Brent crude benchmark slipped 0.9% to $US48.71 a barrel as the biggest surge in US inventories in six months reminded investors about how oversupplied the market remains.
That's not good news for the likes of Woodside Petroleum Limited (ASX: WPL), which continues to defend its takeover bid for Oil Search Limited (ASX: OSH) as "fully priced" and warned that Canadian liquefied natural gas producers need to lower their cost structure by 25-30%.
But its iron ore giant Rio Tinto Limited (ASX: RIO) that will dominate the spotlight as it hands in its quarterly production report that showed a 17% increase in third quarter iron ore shipments of 91.3 million tonnes and maintained its full year shipment guidance of 340 million tonnes.
We will bring you more details and analysis on Rio Tinto later, but its share price is unlikely to respond in the same way as Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX: FMG) when it released its quarterly yesterday, which sent its share price surging 6% to $2.29.
On the acquisition front, agribusiness Graincorp Ltd (ASX: GNC) is the latest to come into focus on speculation that Prime Minister Turnbull will be more open to foreign takeovers and allow Archer Daniels Midland to mop up the rest of the company that it doesn't already own.
Port and rail operator Asciano Ltd (ASX: AIO) will also continue to remain in focus after Brookfield Infrastructure said it will work hard to address concerns brought up by the competition watchdog to win approval for its takeover of Asciano.
Asciano's share price collapsed yesterday when the competition regulator detailed its list of issues with the proposed merger and I am not hopeful that the deal will get through.
Elsewhere, the profits of the Big Four banks will be a topic of discussion after Credit Suisse estimated that the group's profits will rise by $915 million if the other three follow Westpac Banking Corp's (ASX: WBC) lead in raising mortgage rates by 20 basis points.
Health insurer NIB Holdings Limited (ASX: NHF) could enjoy buying support after JPMorgan upgraded the stock to "overweight", although salmon farmer Tassal Group Limited (ASX:TGR) could go in the opposite direction as Goldman Sachs cut its recommendation on the stock to "neutral " from "buy".
Finally, today is the last day you can buy debt collector Credit Corp Group Limited (ASX: CCP) for its fully franked 22 cents a share dividend as the stock will trade without its dividend entitlement on Monday.
