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It’s been a softer start to the new trading week for the local market. Wall Street provided a soft lead with weaker US jobs data leading the major US indices to its fifth consecutive day of losses.
The ASX 200 index is trading 21 points or 0.34% lower at 6182.7 but have recovered from its intra-session lows just before midday AEDT.
Every sector is in negative territory with the energy sector leading the losses as oil prices eased. Major energy producers are declining by roughly 2% with Woodside Petroleum (WPL) down 1.8%. Santos (STO) is falling 2% while Beach Energy (BPT) is 3% weaker.
Not helping the performance of the broader market is weakness for the heavyweight miners and banks, all in the red along with major health stocks and supermarkets.
Despite the losses far outweighing the winners, there are still some bright spots. IT stocks and gold miners are among the outperformers. In the tech space, Afterpay Touch (APT) is climbing 3.2%. Appen (APX) is in a trading halt as it looks to raise $300 million in funds to buy a USbased machine software platform for an upfront cost of ~US$175 million (~A$250m).
Newcrest Mining (NCM) is climbing 2.5% as the gold miner announced a joint venture acquisition with Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) listed Imperials Metals for the Red Chris gold & copper mine in British Columbia for US$806.5 million. NCM will have a 70% stake in the joint venture for the mine which is estimated to contain 20 million ounces of gold and 13 billion pounds of copper.
Other gold names are improving between 2.5% and 4% with Saracen Minerals (SAR) and St Barbara (SBM) the standouts.
It is a quiet week ahead for the Aussie economic calendar. The NAB business survey, lending, consumer confidence and tourism arrivals/departures data will be of most interest. The Aussie dollar is mostly unchanged from the end of last week, buying 70.34 US cents.
So far, 1b units have been traded worth $1.5b with 425 stocks higher, 495 weaker and 383 unchanged.
Published by CommSec