The local sharemarket largely mimicked trade seen on Wall Street overnight, and extended its declines to a second straight day after the ASX 200 shed 0.8 per cent or 53.9 points to 6676.8. Ten (of 11) sectors and roughly 66 per cent of stocks in the ASX 200 lost ground. The Big 4 banks all declined on average by 1.2 per cent, and dragged the Financials sector lower by a similar amount. Coal miners New Hope Corporation (NHC), Whitehaven Coal (WHC)
and Coronado Global Resources (CRN) were amongst some of the best performers today and helped cap losses in the Mining sector, which declined by 0.3 per cent. The Energy sector, despite being down by as much as 0.9 per cent at one stage, bucked the trend and finished with a gain of 2 per cent.
Over the week the ASX 200 fell for a second straight week, after finishing 1.2 per cent lower. Nine sectors declined and around 63 per cent of stocks retreated. St Barbara (SBM) and Megaport (MP1) fell by 36.3 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively, and were amongst the worst performers this week. This comes after investors reacted negatively to updates they released earlier in the week. Lithium stocks Novonix (NVX), Core Lithium (CXO) and Liontown Resources (LTR) were amongst the best performers, rising by 22.8 per cent, 19 per cent, and 13.5 per cent, respectively.
On the company front, Allkem (AKE) released a quarterly update and fell by 1.8 per cent. This comes despite the lithium miner announcing that its quarterly revenues was $298 million, and its production was 17 per cent more than the previous corresponding period.
AMP Limited (AMP) finished flat following the release of its quarterly report. It noted that its total loan book grew by 2.6 per cent to A$23.3 billion, and also posted a 77 per cent annual increase in its platform net cash inflows, to A$363 million. Its assets-undermanagement for its Wealth Management division however, declined by 3 per cent over the quarter to A$121.4 billion, which AMP says was partly driven by ‘lower investment markets’ and ‘net
cash outflows’.
Whitehaven Coal (WHC) announced that it completed ‘its initial 10 per cent share buy-back’, which it commenced earlier this year. WHC shares rose by 4.6 per cent and finished at $10.49. So far this year, WHC has more than quadrupled, helped largely by a surging coal price.
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In the US tonight, American Express and Verizon Communications are among some companies scheduled to release their earnings results.
Next week, on the economic front, quarterly inflation data for Australia will be released and the US PCE Core Deflator is expected to also be issued.
Today, 2.8bn shares were traded, worth $7.5bn. 571 stocks rose, 707 fell & 471 finished unchanged.
Originally published by Divik Nigam – (Author), CommSec
