ASX closes higher as tech sector rallies

The news: The Australian sharemarket closed higher as tech stocks rallied, tracking gains on Wall Street ahead of today's keynote from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at tech event CES 2025.

The benchmark ASX 200 gained 0.34% to end at 8,285.1, with eight out of 11 sectors finishing in green.

Biggest movers:

• Nine Entertainment (5.58%) — Shares extended gains from Monday after reports that Tanarra Capital had taken a stake in the media company. It was also reported that former Foxtel executive Amanda Laign was expected to be appointed as the company’s head of broadcast operations, according to the Financial Review.
• IDP Education (3.92%) — Macquarie upgraded its rating on the stock to ‘outperform’ as analysts said the company’s near-term downgrades and upcoming first-half result were potential buying opportunities in the company.
• Tech sector (1.46%) — The sector was the best performing, with Siteminder (3.65%), NextDC (2.85%), Life360 (3.11%) and Xero (2.22%) leading the charge. The rally followed gains on Wall Street and Huang’s keynote speech, which he used to unveil the next generation of RTX graphic processing units.
• Champion Iron (-6.55%), Fortescue (-4.43%) — Extended losses from Monday after iron ore prices fell below USD100 ($159.77) last week.

Other news:

• Novonix (6.71%) — Announced that it was close to purchasing land in Tennessee for its second synthetic graphite mass production plant.
• Capricorn Metals (2.2%) — Posted an improved December quarter production at its Karlawindi gold project in Western Australia, and said it is on track to hit full-year guidance.
• Amcor (1.87%) — Citi analysts upgraded the the stock to ‘buy’ after a recent sell-off following its acquisition of Berry Global.
• Ramsay Health Care (XX%) — Morningstar flagged that the private hospital operator’s shares were undervalued and forecast group profitability to improve.
• WiseTech (0.39%) — Agreed to acquire Sydney-based ImpexDocs, a provider of global trade management solutions.