ASX drops after short RBA relief rally; AMP in trading halt
By Millie Muroi
The Australian sharemarket opened softer on Wednesday, paring some of the gains made in the previous session after the Reserve Bank pressed pause on its rate hikes.
The S&P/ASX 200 was down 13 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 7266 shortly after 11am AEST. All sectors except communication services traded in the red, with the market lacking direction from Wall Street, which was closed overnight for the Independence Day holiday.
Relief from interest rate rises may be short-lived after the RBA flagged further increases could be on the cards. RBA governor Philip Lowe said the July pause would let the central bank assess the impact of its 12 previous rate rises, but warned more might be needed to get inflation under control.
AMP had its shares halted from trade as the wealth management giant assesses “the full effect” of a judgement by the Victorian federal court in a class action over the reduced prices it offered to pay some of its financial advisers to buy their financial planning businesses. The court “accepted evidence of the loss incurred by the […] lead applicant (Equity Financial Planners – $813,560) and the sample group member (Wealthstone – $115,533),” AMP said.
The energy sector (down 0.6 per cent) was the heaviest weight on the ASX as Woodside (down 0.9 per cent) and Santos (down 0.2 per cent) declined despite a 2.1 per cent increase in Brent Crude oil prices. Coal miners Yancoal (down 0.4 per cent) and Whitehaven (down 0.9 per cent) also pulled back.
Information technology (down 0.5 per cent) declined despite the pause in interest rates on Tuesday, with WiseTech slipping 0.9 per cent. Healthcare (down 0.4 per cent) was also weaker with Cochlear (down 1.3 per cent), Pro Medicus (down 1.1 per cent) and Sonic Healthcare (down 0.8 per cent) among the biggest large-cap decliners.
Communication services (up 0.4 per cent) was the only sector in the green as Telstra (up 0.8 per cent) advanced along with Seek (up 1.6 per cent) and REA Group (up 0.4 per cent).
Treasury Wine Estates rose 0.7 per cent after saying it will close a Victorian winery used to make budget wines to account for the fact that drinkers are increasingly ditching cheaper wine in favour of premium and luxury wines.
Electricity generator Mercury NZ (up 5 per cent) was the biggest large-cap advancer, followed by Lynas Rare Earths (up 1.7 per cent) and Cleanaway Waste Management (up 1.6 per cent).
In overseas markets, European stocks edged higher overnight in thin trading, led by gains in real estate and health-care shares as investors looked ahead to the monthly report on US employment on Friday for clues to how high interest rates in the world’s largest economy will go.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index edged up 0.1 per cent by the close in London, having gained as much as 0.3 per cent earlier in the session. Real estate stocks led gains, while carmakers declined. London’s FTSE 100 index closed 0.1 per cent lower, and Germany’s DAX lost 0.3 per cent.
Semiconductor stocks fell after China imposed restrictions on the export of gallium and germanium — two metals that are crucial to parts of the chip industry. Aixtron and IQE were among the sector’s decliners, alongside STMicroelectronics, which is reliant on gallium and germanium for gallium nitride and silicon germanium product lines.
While resilient earnings and bets that central banks will slow their interest-rate-hiking pace have bolstered global markets for the first half of the year, strategists are increasingly saying that recessionary headwinds will weigh on trading for the rest of 2023.
Investors are closely watching America’s jobs report on Friday for clues on the Federal Reserve’s future rate moves.
“Investors are assessing the ongoing impact of tighter monetary policy and the resilience of economies to withstand further interest rate hikes,” Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown. Additionally, the back-and-forth between the US and China over rare metal export curbs may lead to “fresh supply chain snarl ups which could prove inflationary for some sectors,” she warned.
On commodities markets, oil traded above $US71 a barrel a day after OPEC+ linchpins Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to prop up prices by curbing supply. West Texas Intermediate climbed about 2 percent in New York, though volumes were subdued due to the July 4 holiday. In a flurry of announcements on Monday, Saudi Arabia said it will prolong a unilateral 1 million barrel-a-day supply reduction into August, while Russia declared a cut in exports and output.
with Bloomberg
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