ASX ends lower, Platinum and Regal gain
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: The Australian sharemarket has ended lower, tracking falls on Wall Street, as the materials sector led losses.
The numbers: The benchmark ASX 200 dropped 0.67% to end at 8,150, with nine out of 11 sectors finishing in red.
The worst performing sector was materials, down 1.18%, followed by IT (-1.16%). Champion Iron tumbled 3.44% after Jarden downgraded the iron ore miner due to interruptions in the September quarter from forest fires at its Bloom Lake mine in Quebec.
The wider selloff in mining stocks reversed some of last week's rally, which came after China's central bank announced a number of growth measures aimed at supporting the property sector, triggering a rise in iron ore prices. Rio (-2%), BHP (-1.81%), Fortescue (-1.15%) all fell.
Treasury Wines shares fell 2.41% after US drinks group Constellation Brands flagged tough conditions in the US wine market.
Magellan Financial Group share dropped 3.32% despite the Sydney investment manager increasing its funds under management in September.
Infratil shares lowered 0.27% despite an independent valuation increasing its data centre valuation by $287 million.
The best performing sector was energy, up 1.84%, followed by healthcare (0.11%). Energy stocks jumped after oil prices surged overnight, following comments by US President Joe Biden that fuelled speculation about potential Israeli strikes on Iran’s oil infrastructure in retaliation for missile attacks.
Oil majors Karoon Energy (2.8%), Woodside Energy (2.72%), Ampol (2.53%), Santos (2.38%), and Beach Energy (1.79%) all rose. Woodside also announced that it had paused work at its Beaumont Clean Ammonia project in the US after the death of a worker.
Light & Wonder was the best performer across the ASX 200, its shares soaring 7.85% after announcing that it was working on a second version of Dragon Train poker machines as part of a judge’s orders in a copyright court case brought by Aristocrat Leisure.
Arcadium Lithium shares gained 3.19% after Macquarie increased its valuation on the lithium producer following its strategy day.
Insignia Financial shares increased 2.66% after ANZ agreed to settle two separate class actions, including one related to the investment of superannuation funds with ANZ when it owned OnePath. ANZ fell 1.46%.
HMC Capital shares gained 2.75% after it confirmed that it was conducting due diligence to potentially acquire various data centre assets including Global Switch Australia.
Regal Partners shares lifted 1.72% while Platinum Asset Management gained 1.65% after the pair agreed to enter due diligence ahead of a revised offer from Regal to acquire Platinum.
The Australian dollar is buying 68.47 US cents.
The context: Tonight will see the latest US unemployment rate figures.
Next week will see both the Reserve Bank of Australia’s and the US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting minutes released.
