James Gruber

Investors had a chance to react to those during Friday's session on Wall Street, and they flocked to the iPhone maker after its better-than-expected quarterly results and optimistic outlook.

I'll go more deeply into that trading session shortly, but it's all about corporate earnings at the moment.

And as you said, it's not over.

More than 100 companies in the S&P 500 are set to post results this week.

Well, when the ASX 200 futures were last trading, they were down 23 points or 0.3% to 8,727.

While there are some banks reporting results this week, investors are going to be watching the RBA's interest rate decision tomorrow afternoon.

Expectations are for a 25 basis point rise to take the official cash rate to 4.35%.

If that happens, it'll be the third rate rise this year.

Well, oil prices dived, as we've indicated on Friday, following that fresh Iran proposal for negotiations with the U.S., a move that could improve prospects for breaking the impasse over peace talks.

Brent crude futures settled down 2% to $108.17 a barrel.

Base metal prices were higher.

Copper futures ended higher.

up 0.1%, while aluminium futures climbed 1.3% on supply concerns amid the US-Iran standoff.

Gold futures inched up on Friday, reversing earlier losses of more than 1% on hopes for a breakthrough to end the Iran war.

futures settled 0.3% higher to US$4,645 an ounce.

Meanwhile, iron ore futures were also modestly higher by 0.6% to US$107.86 a tonne.

Well, those Apple shares advanced 3.3%, first of all, after the company provided a solid sales forecast.

It helped drive the S&P 500 and NASDAQ to those record closing highs and turned the page on their biggest monthly percentage gains in years.

Software companies climbed after Atlassian lifted its annual forecast.

The Australian-based enterprise software maker surged 30%.