While a fall in most commodities overnight saw the Aussie market decline by as much as 0.53 per cent in early trade, the ASX 200 managed to claw back losses and finish on a flat note, just 2.8 pts or 0.04 per cent lower, to 6791.5. Three sectors finished higher, with gains in Tech and Financial stocks offsetting broad-based losses across other sectors. Of particular note was a 1.2 per cent decline in the Energy sector, driven by a 6.1 per cent fall in the oil price this week alone. 77 stocks finished in positive territory, and the Big 4 banks all posted gains.
The ASX 200 added 2.8 per cent over the week, its best week since mid-March – which was also the case for the Financials sector, after it climbed 4.4 per cent. The ASX Small Ords rose by 5.8 per cent – its best week since October 2020. The Materials sector managed to snap a six-week losing streak after adding 3.7 per cent. The strong performance of the Materials sector was driven by a raft of quarterly updates released by miners this week.
Over the week, shares of Zip Co (ZIP) climbed 54.4 per cent and in fact have surged 100 per cent so far this month. This follows an announcement the buy-now-pay-later company released yesterday, which showed a 27 per cent quarterly lift in its revenue to $160.1m. ZIP also made mention yesterday of plans to accelerate their path to profitability by reducing cash burn.
In economic news, the European Central Bank (ECB) raised its interest rates by 50 basis points last night – the biggest rate hike since 2000, and the first rate hike since 2011.
Coronado Global Resources (CRN) was the worst performing stock this week after it extended its losses to a fourth straight day, losing another 8.1 per cent. This comes after the coal miner announced an upward revision of its Average Mining Costs Per Tonne Sold guidance to $79-81 per tonne, which CRN says is in
line with ‘growing global inflationary cost pressures’. CRN also says that ‘significant wet weather events in Queensland’ caused its saleable coal production to decline by 22.5 per cent over the quarter, to 3.3Mt.
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Insurance Australia Group (IAG) announced its preliminary FY22 results, posting a FY22 profit of $347 million (FY21: $427 million loss) and a gross written premium growth of 5.7 per cent. IAG’s insurance profit ($586 million) margin stood at 7.4 per cent, which is 6.1 percentage points lower than the previous corresponding period.
3.2bn shares were traded, worth $9.2bn. 699 stocks rose, 660 fell & 403 finished unchanged.
In the US, S&P Global purchasing managers’ indexes (PMIs) are due.
Originally published by Divik Nigam – (Author), CommSec
