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ASX closes higher as shares in mining giants BHP, Rio Tinto rise
By Jessica Yun
Here’s your five-minute guide to the trading day, and how the experts saw it.
The numbers
The Australian sharemarket finished Tuesday’s session in the green, following a rise on Wall Street as investors await further clues on where interest rates and profits for some of the US stock market’s most influential companies are heading.
The S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.5 per cent, or 33.3 points, higher to 7339.7 points, lifted by materials and energy stocks.
Wall Street closed higher across the board.Credit: Reuters
The lifters
Sayona Mining was the day’s best performer, closing 6.7 per cent higher, followed by Monadelphous Group and Pilbara Minerals, which rose 5.4 per cent and 5.2 per cent respectively.
Market heavyweights BHP and Rio Tinto also helped lift the bourse, finishing 3.3 per cent and 3.4 per cent higher.
The laggards
Domino’s Pizza slumped by 5 per cent after its quarterly results showed that revenue of $US1.02 billion ($1.5 billion) undershot analysts’ expectations of $US1.07 billion. Credit Corp Group lost 4.3 per cent and Nufarm slid 3.6 per cent. Each of the big four banks finished in the red.
The lowdown
Miners and material players stole the show, with many of them making solid gains. Steel giant BlueScope closed 2.4 per cent higher after striking a deal to buy gas from Senex’s stalled $1 billion Atlas project in Queensland, despite ongoing uncertainty over whether it will ever proceed to development following the introduction of new regulations governing the industry.
Investments in two domestic gas projects – Senex’s Atlas expansion in southern Queensland and a Cooper Energy project in Victoria’s offshore Otway Basin – were put on hold last year when the Albanese government imposed temporary price caps to tame soaring electricity and gas prices, and began drafting a new mandatory code of conduct for gas producers.
Meanwhile, major gold miner Newcrest eked out a 0.1 per cent share price gain after reducing underground mining rates at its flagship Cadia mine in New South Wales after the state’s environmental watchdog found it was failing to comply with clean air standards.
The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) in June determined that the giant Cadia mine near Orange was releasing an unacceptable level of dust from its main vent, and warned Newcrest it may suspend the mine’s operating licence unless the company took immediate action to rectify the breaches.
Wall Street ticked higher overnight to start a week full of updates on where interest rates and profits for some of the stock market’s most influential companies are heading. The S&P 500 rose by 0.4 per cent. The Dow Jones gained 0.5 per cent and the Nasdaq composite added 0.2 per cent.
Roughly 30 per cent of companies in the S&P 500 are scheduled to tell investors this week how much they earned from April through June. Key among them are three big tech behemoths that have grown so large that their stock movements often dictate where the S&P 500 goes.
Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Microsoft will all report their results this week, and they’re three of the seven stocks that accounted for the majority of the S&P 500’s gain in the first half of the year. Each of the three has soared at least 37 per cent for this year so far, and they’ll need to deliver strong numbers to justify their big rallies.
Quote of the day
“Australian shoppers are savvy. And unlike banks, telcos or utilities, our customers will freely switch retailers to get the best deal. In the last year, around 7 in 10 of our customers have also shopped at Coles, Aldi and IGA.”
That’s Woolworths chief commercial officer Paul Harker, who told a hearing of a House of Reps committee inquiry into promoting economic dynamism, competition and business formation that competitors like Aldi, Costco and Amazon have helped raise the bar for online shopping and keep Woolies at the ‘top of its game’.
Tweet of the day
You may have missed
The corporate regulator will take investment giant Vanguard to court over greenwashing allegations related to the group’s ethically conscious bond index fund.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said on Tuesday it had launched proceedings against Vanguard in the Federal Court. One of the world’s biggest investment managers, Vanguard has $11 trillion in assets under management globally.
AP
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