Live: Wall Street ends lower as investors wait for latest inflation data, ASX set to rise (2024)

• ASX 200 futures: +0.6% to 7,705 points
  
• Australian dollar: Flat at 66.31 US cents
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• Nasdaq: -1.1% to 16,737 points
• FTSE: +0.6% to 8,231 points
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Prices current around 7:45am AEST.

Bust out the barbecues, because Bunnings remains Australia's most trusted brand.

That's according to the latest research from Roy Morgan, which has found the hardware chain has increased its trust amongst Australians in the 12 months to March this year.

Bunnings was first crowned the most trusted brand in the country in the last three months of 2023 — and has benefited from Coles and Woolworths falling out of favour with more of us.

Woolworths is now the 34th most trusted brand overall, while Coles is now the ninth most distrusted brand. In fact, Coles has seen an "unprecedented fall of 221 places in the rankings".

So if Bunnings took out the gold, which brands took out the silver and bronze? That would be Aldi, followed by Kmart.

Roy Morgan notes that our "distrust for companies has grown significantly in the last year as cost-of-living concerns and high inflation have increased concern about companies being motivated by high profits and corporate greed, excessive price hikes, dishonesty and not being focused enough on putting the customer first".

"The fate of Woolworths and Coles reveals how quickly distrust can gain momentum and negatively impact a brand's reputation," said Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine.

"There's an old Dutch saying that trust arrives on foot but leaves on horseback. In other words, trust is slow to win but quick to lose."

Still curious about where other brands sit when it comes to trust?

Here's the top 10 most trusted:

And here's the top 10 most distrusted:

In case you missed it yesterday (no judgement here), Brookfield has entered into a deal to purchase French renewable power producer Neoen for a cool 6.1 billion euros ($9.9 billion).

The deal will see the Canadian-based Brookfield acquire 53.32% of Neoen for 39.85 euros a share from its main shareholders, then the remainder of the company at the same price.

The offer price is almost 27% higher than Neoen's last closing price.

Neoen is also the largest owner and operator of renewables here in Australia — meaning Brookfield will become the biggest renewables company in the country, should the deal be approved.

"Neoen has built one of the world's greatest renewable energy development platforms," said Connor Teskey, Brookfield's chief executive of renewable power and transition.

"We are excited to build on Brookfield's expertise, track record and access to capital to further accelerate Neoen's growth while preserving its culture and identity.

"Acquiring Neoen further strengthens Brookfield's global scale, while diversifying into key renewables markets and adding expertise in battery storage technology.

"We look forward to partnering with management to scale up the business to meet the growing demand we are seeing for clean power."

You might recall Brookfield had attempted to buyOrigin Energysix months ago — but the deal was scuttled after Origin's shareholders dismissed the takeover offer.

If you're a keen market and business watcher you'd know there's a lot of interest when it comes to critical minerals — and Australia is believed to have an abundance of them.

Critical minerals are essential when it comes to high-tech manufacturing in renewable energy, communications equipment and defence, but experts still aren't sure exactly where all of the deposits are.

That's where the federal budget comes in — it's promised Geoscience Australia $566 million over the next 10 years to map our country's critical minerals and water reserves.

Over here in business land, we're partial to a good critical minerals story (in fact, my colleagues will tell you I affectionally refer to them as "rock stories"), but I've got nothing on the head of Geosciences Australia James Johnson.

"I'm jumping out of my skin with excitement," Dr Johnson told the ABC.

You can read more about the ambitious project from political reporter Matthew Doran below:

Good morning and happy Friday! It's May 31 and you're reading the ABC's business and markets blog.

(Can you believe it's the last day of the month?)

It was somewhat of a dismal session on Wall Street overnight, with the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq all ending lower and fresh data showing that consumers are starting to slow down on their spending.

The revised data for the US's first quarter of economic growth showed that the economy has slowed more than was first expected, which weighed on investors.

"Normally you'd expect the market to rally off of a downward revision to GDP because it signals the economy is moderating, the Fed's job is done, we can get rate cuts. That's not the reaction we're getting today," said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide.

"So I'm a little surprised but not that surprised, simply because after the six week (rally) that we've had, it's pretty healthy and expected to see some consolidation or sideways move for a while."

The caution comes ahead of the US's latest inflation data being released tonight, local time.

As for how our local share market is tracking, futures are suggesting that the ASX is set to rise at the open after recording losses so far this week.

Grab a coffee and settle in, and let's see how the day unfolds.