ASX falls as tech drags
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The news: The Australian sharemarket has finished lower after most sectors fell, following declines on Wall Street.
The numbers: The benchmark ASX200 ended 1.34% down at 7,782.5, with nine out of 11 sectors finishing in red.
The worst performing sector was IT, down 3.94%, followed by AREITs (-3.22%) and consumer discretionary (-2.11%). All the large tech companies posted losses including Wisetech (-5.02%), Xero (-5.39%) and NextDC (-3.57%).
Westgold Resources was one of the worst performing stocks across the exchange, down 14.08%, after the gold miner lowered its production guidance.
Elsewhere, battery technology company Novonix and miner Lithium Energy both fell (-3.21% and -6.8% respectively) after agreeing to merge and spin off their adjoining graphic mining holdings in Queensland.
The best performing sector was utilities, up 0.16%, followed by energy (0.06%) and consumer staples (-0.66%). For most of the trading day, energy was the only sector to gain as companies were boosted by increasing oil prices. Beach Energy finished up 0.27% after an upgrade from Macquarie analysts, while Boss Energy gained 0.2% on its uranium update.
Ramelius Resources enjoyed gains of 6.35% after the gold miner reported record production during the March quarter that helped push costs much lower than expected.
The Australian dollar is higher buying US65.2 cents.
The context: The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the latest building approvals and household spending figures on Thursday while the US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will speak at Stanford on the Fed’s economic outlook.
