ASX lifts as gold miners rally; Steadfast Group tanks on CEO workplace complaint
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More news: Australian shares opened higher on Friday as gold miners rallied, after gold prices climbed back above USD4,000 per ounce overnight.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was up 41.1 points, or 0.46%, to 8,926.6 at 10:30am AEDT. Eight of the 11 sectoral indices were in positive territory.
Gold stocks made up seven of the top 10 performers on the ASX 200, led by Newmont (+4.3%), Genesis Minerals (+4.1%) and Vault Minerals (+4%).
Insurance broker network Steadfast Group was the worst performer, tumbling 8.8% after confirming that managing director and CEO Robert Kelly will temporarily stand aside amid an external investigation into a workplace complaint against him.
Origin Energy (-5.4%) and Endeavour Group (-1.5%) also retreated after releasing first-quarter trading updates this morning.
Australian shares set to rise despite Big Tech sell-off on Wall Street
The news: Australian shares are set to rise at the open after a mixed set of high-profile third-quarter earnings overnight dragged US stocks lower.
The numbers: Updated at 7:30am AEDT:
- ASX futures: up 28 points, or 0.31%, to 8,909
- Wall Street: Dow Jones down 0.23%, S&P 500 down 0.96% and Nasdaq down 1.57%
- Europe: CAC 40 down 0.53%, DAX down 0.02% and FTSE 100 up 0.04%
- Spot gold: up 2.30% to USD4,022 per ounce
- Oil prices: Brent down 0.39% to USD64.67/bbl and US WTI down 0.30% to USD60.30/bbl
- AUD: down 0.31% at 65.55 US cents
- Bitcoin: down 2.76% to USD107,045.
The context: Wall Street's three main indices ended lower overnight after tech giants Meta (-11.3%) and Microsoft (-2.9%) sold off. Both companies this week revealed higher-than-expected expenses forecasts due to rising investments in artificial intelligence.
Shares in Google parent Alphabet (+2.5%) lifted after its third-quarter result topped estimates, boosted by growth in its advertising and cloud computing businesses.
The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell after setting fresh record closing highs in each of the previous four sessions, boosted by renewed optimism around AI.
Elsewhere, US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping struck a one-year economic truce during a meeting in Busan, though the deal was mostly priced in by market watchers.
The source: Reuters
