Live news: Australian shares rise in first trading session of new year

PMI: December purchasing manager indices by IHS Markit are set to be released for Japan, Thailand, Australia, Vietnam and China. The Singapore Institute of Purchasing and Materials Management will also release its December report.

Markets: Australian and Japanese equities rose on Tuesday morning in their first trading session of the new year. They followed incremental gains in the US on Monday, with the S&P 500 advancing 0.6 per cent to close at a record high.

Australian equities rose and futures in Asia diverged on Tuesday after stocks in the US began the year with minor gains.

The S&P/ASX 200 rose as much as 0.9 per cent in the morning of its first day of trading in 2022, while futures rose in Hong Kong but declined in Japan.

In the US on Monday, the S&P 500 advanced 0.6 per cent to close at a record high. The US benchmark was lifted by a surge in Tesla shares, after the carmaker reported blowout production numbers.

A rally in shares of Apple, which pushed the iPhone maker’s market capitalisation to $3tn, also boosted the index.

US Treasury prices also fell sharply on Monday in a bearish start to 2022 that follows the worst year for the global bond market in more than two decades.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose by nearly 0.13 percentage points, exceeding 1.6 per cent for the first time since the emergence in late November of the Omicron strain of coronavirus, which sent yields tumbling.

That marked one of the biggest Treasury sell-offs over the past year.

The New York attorney-general has expanded her investigation into Donald Trump’s business empire, issuing subpoenas to the ex-president’s two eldest children.

Letitia James issued the subpoenas to Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr last month, according to documents filed with the New York Supreme Court on Monday. Her office said investigators are “seeking interviews under oath” of all three family members.

The court filings said the subpoenas were issued “in connection with an investigation into the valuation of properties owned or controlled by Donald J Trump or the Trump Organization”.

James’s investigation is believed to focus on whether the former president inflated the value of his properties for some purposes — say, securing a bank loan or insurance — while minimising them when it came to paying taxes.

The new filings, dated December 30, indicated that lawyers for the former president and his adult children are seeking to block James’s staff from interviewing them as part of the inquiry.

“Despite numerous attempts to delay our investigation by the Trump Organization, we are confident that our questions will be answered and the truth will be uncovered because no one is above the law,” the attorney-general’s office said.

Read more about the investigation.

Apple has become the first company to hit a market capitalisation of $3tn, after its value rose by $1tn in less than 16 months as the coronavirus pandemic turbocharged Big Tech.

The iPhone maker became a $1tn company in August 2018 and two years later became the first company to be valued at $2tn. On Monday, shares in the company rose by 3 per cent to $182.86, taking it past the latest milestone, before easing back to close at $182.01.

Apple briefly lost its title as the world’s most valuable company to Microsoft at the end of October. However, a strong rally in November restored its crown. It then surged higher into the end of 2021, and has added half a trillion dollars to its market value since November 15.

Only a handful of companies are worth more than $1tn, including Tesla and Amazon. Google parent Alphabet and oil group Saudi Aramco are valued at about $2tn, while Microsoft’s market value is roughly $2.5tn.

Apple’s stock climbed more than 30 per cent in 2021 as it deftly navigated the supply chain crisis and benefited from extra demand during the pandemic for iPhones, Macs and iPads as customers upgraded their home offices.

Read more about Apple.