ASX slips 0.85% with almost all sectors in red
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The news: The Australian sharemarket pared some of its its gains from earlier in the week, tracking Wall Street falls after the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell.
The numbers: The benchmark ASX 200 finished 0.85% lower to 7,814.4, with 10 out of 11 sectors finishing in red on Friday. But over the course of the week the market edged higher.
The worst performing sector was IT, down 3.05%, followed by healthcare (-2.27%) and AREITs (-1.76%). Financial software group Iress was one of the worst performing stocks, down 4.22%, after flagging that an alleged threat actor had contacted the company with statements that “did not align” with investigations surrounding a hack.
Lendlease ended 2.08% lower after outlining its plans to sell its life sciences assets in Asia, while property group peer GPT fell 2.7% after announcing the retirement of its long standing chief operating officer Mark Fookes and the appointment of its new chief investment officer Mark Harrison.
The Star Entertainment Group lost 1.63% despite receiving a temporary licence reprieve for its Queensland casinos in a bid to give the company more time to demonstrate its fitness to operate.
Elsewhere, Nuix dropped 2.46% after announcing its COO and CFO Chad Barton would step down in August.
The best performing sector was materials (0.39%), followed by consumer staples (-0.57%) and financials (-0.67%). Macquarie analysts said new US tariffs on China’s critical minerals and electric vehicles could be positive for Australian graphite developers, lithium miners, and aluminium miners. Graphite developer Syrah Resources (6.19%) gained as did lithium miners Pilbara Minerals (2.24%), IGO (1.03%) and Arcadium Lithium (2.59%).
The best performing ASX 200 stock was Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, surging 7.96%, after its cash earnings beat the consensus estimate by 9%.
GrainCorp continued gains from Thursday, up 4.3%, after analysts increased their price target on the stock.
Despite announcing it would pay a $67 million money laundering penalty, SkyCity Entertainment Group ended the day 0.66% higher.
The Australian dollar is lower buying 66.75 US cents.
The context: Next week will see the Reserve Bank publish its monetary policy meeting minutes, while the Australian Bureau of Statistics publish the latest monthly employee earning figures.
Offshore, the US Federal Reserve monetary meeting minutes will also be published along with the country’s unemployment claims and manufacturing and services purchasing managers’ index figures.
