ASX opens lower as James Hardie drops 27% on Q1 result
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More news: Australian shares lowered at the open as building materials group James Hardie tumbled 27% after reporting a 60% slide in first-quarter profit.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was down 17.6 points, or 0.2%, to 8,878.6 at 10:40am AEST. Seven of the 11 sectoral indices were in positive territory.
James Hardie (-27%) led losses on the ASX 200, while coal miner Yancoal (-8%) and critical resources miner Iluka (-5.8%) also opened sharply lower after releasing their respective financial results.
Biotech giant CSL fell a further 4.4%, after ending 17% lower on Tuesday, taking the healthcare sector down 2.9%.
Meanwhile, investment manager HMC Capital (+8.6%) rebounded to lead ASX 200 gainers, after tumbling yesterday following its full-year result. The Lottery Corporation (+8.1%), Magellan Financial Group (+6%) and Stockland (+6%) all rallied after announcing earnings this morning.
Australian shares to rise despite Nvidia-led tech slump on Wall Street
The news: Australian shares are poised to open higher after tech majors led the S&P 500 and Nasdaq lower overnight, as investors prepared for the Federal Reserve's annual symposium later this week, where Fed chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak on the economic outlook and the central bank's policy framework.
The numbers: Updated at 7:30am AEST:
- ASX futures: up 20 points, or 0.22%, to 8,875 points
- Wall Street: Dow Jones up 0.02%, S&P 500 down 0.59% and Nasdaq down 1.46%
- Europe: CAC 40 up 1.21%, DAX up 0.45% and FTSE 100 up 0.34%
- Spot gold: down 0.51% to USD3,316 per ounce
- Oil prices: Brent up 0.27% to USD65.97/bbl and US WTI down 1.43% to USD62.51/bbl
- AUD: down 0.59% to 64.53 US cents
- Bitcoin: down 2.36% to USD113,542.
The context: Chip giant Nvidia (-3.5%) led a selloff in tech megacaps on Wall Street, as Meta Platforms (-2.1%), Tesla (-1.8%), Amazon (-1.5%) and Microsoft (-1.4%) all retreated. Nvidia saw its biggest intraday fall in nearly four months, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 took its second largest intraday hit since April.
Elsewhere, Home Depot shares lifted 3.2% after the home improvement retailer reported its second-quarter results. Intel surged 7% on news that the tech company would gain a USD2 billion ($3.08 billion) capital injection from SoftBank Group.
In the local market, Transurban, Stockland and James Hardie are among the ASX companies due to report financial results this morning.
