Australian equity markets ended their six-day winning run on Wednesday as losses in Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Financial, Utilities sector outweighed gains in IT and Materials stocks. Out of the eleven sectors on ASX, 9 ended in losses, while only two settled in green.
S&P/ASX200 closed 22.20 points or 0.32% lower at 6,975.90 after setting a new 20-day high. Over the last five days, the index has gained 2.24%, but is down 6.30% for the last year to date.
The bottom performing stocks in this index were Centuria Industrial REIT and The Star Entertainment Group Limited, down 4.01% and 3.56% respectively.
Information Technology was the best performing sector, gaining 2.14% followed by Materials sector which closed with 0.31% gains.
Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples ended 1.23% and 0.92% lower followed by Utilities and Financial sectors that ended 0.88% down each.
The ASX market kept tracking Wall Street that ended lower in last trading session weighed by the ongoing geopolitical tensions after the Taiwan visit of Nancy Pelosi.
Newsmakers
Charter Hall Retail REIT (ASX:CQR) – The real estate business giant was in news as it has purchased a portfolio of 18 Gull petrol stations in New Zealand. Also, the company has acquired further 5% interest in existing Charter Hall partnership with Ampol.
Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia Ltd (ASX:GMA) – This financial sector firm announced an on-market share buyback of AU$100 million that would represent 9.2% of the firm’s issued in share capital or almost 34.7 million shares.
BWP Trust (ASX:BWP) – The real estate giant has released its financial results for the full year and reported a 0.6% gain in profit before gains on its investment activities.
Orica Limited (ASX:ORI) – Orica has struck a deal to acquire Axis Mining Technology for AU$350 million. To fund this transaction, the company would raise AU$650 million via institutional placement. ORI stock last traded at AU$17.200 per share on ASX.
Bond yields
Australia’s 10-year Bond Yield stands at 3.113% as of 3.51 PM AEST.
In global markets
Wall Street had closed down post an uneven session on Tuesday, 2 August 2022. Ongoing geopolitical upheavals after the Taiwan visit of Nancy Pelosi have been weighing upon the markets heavily.
US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi had stated that her visit is representative of the fact that America stands in solidarity with Taiwan however, China criticised her visit and termed it as a threat.
The S&P 500 ended 0.66% lower, Nasdaq declined 0.16% and Dow Jones Industrial Average lowered 1.23%.
In Asia, on Wednesday, most of the stocks were seen recovering from recently incurred losses. After Pelosi visit to Taiwan, China’s benchmark Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 traded flat along with Taiwan’s main stock index that was also seen trading flat. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.6% and bourses in South Korea and Thailand too made a recovery. Hang Seng index gained 0.7% on Wednesday while Singapore stocks were seen on flat mode.
In Commodities markets
Crude Oil WTI was spotted trading at US$94.53/bbl while Brent Oil was at US$100.59/bbl at 01.49 PM AEST.
Gold was at US$1786.10 an ounce, copper was at US$3.5255/Lbs at 1.50 PM AEST.
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