Elizabeth Gaines Departs Fortescue; Sigrid Kaag Joins Board

Former Fortescue chief executive Elizabeth Gaines will leave the miner after more than 13 years, it has announced this morning.

She has resigned from her role as executive director, effective June 30.

Ms Gaines joined the board as a non-executive director in 2013, and later moved into executive roles, serving as chief financial officer, and then CEO from 2018 to 2022.

In an ASX statement this morning, the company described Ms Gaines as "a driving force behind the global transition to green energy".

Former Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands, and UN official, Sigrid Kaag will join the Fortescue board as a non-executive director.

Mixed messages. Is ASX 200 Futures up or down

- John Anderson

John, apologies for the confusion.

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but we've made the appropriate edits.

I had posted Friday's closing figure -- up 0.4 per cent -- instead of what ASX 200 futures are telling us.

ASX 200 futures are down 0.7 per cent and we appreciate you following the business blog so diligently!

Digging a little deeper into the numbers of Wall Street's impressive end to the week.

The S & P 500 notched its eighth consecutive weekly gain, its longest since a nine-week streak ended in December 2023.

Nine out of the 11 major S & P 500 sector indexes gained, led by healthcare, utilities, industrials and technology stocks.

Semiconductor stocks, which have driven recent Wall Street gains, were mostly higher. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose, lifted by a 12% jump in Qualcomm, while Nvidia NVDA.O slipped 1.90%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 294.04 points, or 0.58%, to 50,579.70, a record closing high.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 50.87 points, or 0.19%, to 26,343.97.

"Earnings season looked really good and the economic data, save a few outliers, looked pretty solid so fundamentally the picture looks really solid," said James St. Aubin, chief investment officer at Ocean Park Asset Management in Santa Monica, California.

"The war has been one major speed bump along the road for at least the equity market but I think the headlines today looked encouraging and that was probably helping at the margin."

Long-dated government bond yields were lower, having pulled back from recent highs. The yield on benchmark US 10-year notes fell 2.6 basis points to 4.558%.

"The bond market seems to be cooling off and yields are coming down from where they were starting to peak earlier this week and I think that's very encouraging too," St. Aubin said.

With reporting by Reuters

ASX 200 futures are showing fall of around 0.7%.

That translates to a drop of around 55 points.

The ASX 200 closed up on Friday, gaining 35.3 points or 0.4% to 8,657 points.

Wall Street ended last week strongly to give us optimism for the new trading week.

The Dow Jones was at 50,579.70, up 294 points or 0.6%, which was a new record closing high.

The S & P 500 was 7,473.47, up 27.75 points or 0.4%

And the Nasdaq Composite finished at 26,343.97, up 0.2%.

Good morning and happy Monday!

I'm Jason Dasey, ABC News business reporter, and I will be with you to start our business blog for another week.

We would love to see a more positive session for the ASX 200, although futures are pointing downwards.

But we're still hopeful there could be light at end of the tunnel for Australian markets.

Let's find out!

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