Live: ASX to recover from three-month low, surging oil prices drag Wall Street lower

The Australian share market is likely to rise slightly and bounce back from its three-month low.Wall Street extended its sell-off as oil prices spiked on further signs of disruption in Saudi Arabian crude supplies.See how the trading day unfolds on our blog.Disclaimer: This blog is not intended as investment advice.Wed 16 Sep 2026 at 7:45amWed 16 Sep 2026 at 7:45amMarket snapshotASX futures: +0.4% to 8,691 pointsASX 200 (Tuesday close): -0.9% to 8,673 points Australian dollar: -0.1% to 71.3 US centsWall Street: Dow Jones (-0.6%), S&P 500 (-0.5%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.8%)Europe: Stoxx 600 (-0.3%), DAX (-0.2%), FTSE (-0.4%) Spot gold: -0.1% to $US4,293/ounceOil (Brent futures): +2.6% to $US108.39/barrelOil (WTI futures): +4% to $US105.45/barrelIron ore: -0.1% to $US96.55/tonneBitcoin: -4.1% to $US75,86610-year bond yields: US 5.01%, Australia 5.37%Prices current at around 7:20am AEST Wed 16 Sep 2026 at 8:16amWed 16 Sep 2026 at 8:16amInvestors sold off ASX banks and miners as interest rate worries drag on markets If you want to hear more about why the Australian share market fell to a three-month low yesterday, we have you covered.Essentially, markets are now starting to price in a worse situation in the Middle East and higher interest rates, according to Michael McCarthy, a market strategist and CEO of trading platform Moomoo,You can listen to his interview with The Business host Kirsten Aiken here:Wed 16 Sep 2026 at 8:05amWed 16 Sep 2026 at 8:05amSuncorp's debt collector engaging in 'worst kind' of bullying, former ACCC chair saysDebt collector ARMA Group spent months harassing and intimidating 81-year-old Diane Walker into paying an insurance claim she was not responsible for.ARMA, acting on behalf of insurance giant Suncorp, ended the ordeal with an apology to Ms Walker and financial compensation for the distress caused, but only after months of legal threats and pressure to pay.ARMA's website said its workflows are "AI-driven", boasting it takes the company "less than two minutes to set up a smart payment plan and no manual intervention is required".Legal experts are appalled and say it's a clear breach of Australian consumer laws."This is Robodebt 2.0 of the worst form," said Allan Fels, former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)."I'm very concerned … this seems to be the worst kind of illegal, deceptive conduct, applied to bully, intimidate, frighten.Ms Walker's case is just the tip of the iceberg, as the consumer watchdog takes ARMA Group and Force Legal, both owned by Credit Clear Limited, to court, alleging that between them they sent 320,000 debt enforcement notices to individuals that were allegedly misleading.For more, here's the story by Adelaide Miller:Wed 16 Sep 2026 at 7:53amWed 16 Sep 2026 at 7:53amNext few decades will be 'very difficult', economist Charles Goodhart warns"The next 30 to 40 years are going to be very difficult," the influential economist Charles Goodhart warned recently."Those who lived primarily in the years between 1950 and 2020 — those 70 years — those were probably the best years in terms of growth, living standards, [and] conditions that not only the UK but effectively the Western world has ever seen."We didn't know how lucky we were, and many of the conditions that gave us that magnificent period are over," he said.Goodhart is an emeritus professor at the London School of Economics and a former senior official at the Bank of England.He is famous for his adage, called Goodhart's Law, that an observed statistical relationship will tend to collapse once you try to target it for policy purposes.For more on this bleak economic future, here's the latest column by Gareth Hutchens:Wed 16 Sep 2026 at 7:45amWed 16 Sep 2026 at 7:45amASX to recover from three-month low, oil price surgesWelcome to the ABC's finance blog! I'll be guiding you through the latest market action for the next few hours.The Australian share market hasn't been doing so well lately, having fallen almost every day in the past fortnight.As a result of these accumulated losses, the ASX 200 is now at a three-month low.But it appears investors are keen to 'buy the dip' as the futures market indicates the ASX is on track to open slightly higher, by around 0.4% this morning.The Australian dollar is relatively steady at71.3 US cents.That's despite another rough session on Wall Street, which saw the Dow Jones index fall 0.6%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite slipped by 0.5% and 0.8% respectively.Oil price spikes againUS markets were weighed down by another sharp rise in oil prices after shipping industry sources said crude loadings at Saudi Arabia's Red Sea export hub of Yanbu had been suspended.Riyadh had cancelled some cargo deliveries to European customers, deepening concerns that disruptions to a critical oil-export route could persist for weeks.That led to Brent crude futures jumping 2.6% to $US108.39 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate crude futures surging 4% to $US105.45/barrel.The port of Yanbu has taken on outsized importance for global supply since the US-Israeli war on Iran caused the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway that was the conduit for one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.The war has forced Saudi Arabia to reroute crude westward via the roughly 1,200-kilometer East-West pipeline that carries oil from the east to Yanbu on the west coast, allowing exports to leave through the Red Sea without tankers passing through the strait.Attacks on the East-West Pipeline by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on Friday, however, forced the kingdom, the world's largest crude exporter, to shut the key export route.- with Reuters