Join our daily newsletter At The Bell to receive exclusive market insights
The ASX200 is up nearly half a per cent – beating futures earlier predictions,
The energy sector is the top gainer mid-session – up nearly 1.7% whilst IT is down nearly a third of a per cent.
The ABS has released business turnover data for March. The latter showed a 0.3% lift in the 13-industry aggregate – where the largest rise was in Information media and telecommunications (3.7%) while the largest fall was in Transport, postal and warehousing (-3.5%).
In company news
Suncorp Group (ASX:SUN) is down around a per cent after reporting an $85 million increase in 90-days past due loans for the March quarter to $510 million applicable to both commercial and residential transactions.
The banking group also confirmed its home lending portfolio grew above system through the March quarter by 1.4 per cent to $803 million. Business lending grew by $69 million.
SUN has been trading at $16.21.
US supplier Piedmont Lithium Inc (ASX:PLL) is up nearly 4% after ending the first quarter of 2024 with several milestones, including record quarterly production from its North American Lithium (NAL) operation in Quebec, almost doubling its working capital compared to the end of 2023, and the issuing of a mining permit for Carolina Lithium.
PLL has been trading at 21.3 cents.
Critical Minerals Group (ASX:CMG) has announced its JORC resource for vanadium, aluminium and molybdenum at its flagship Lindfield Project has increased by 96%.
The new resource sits at 713Mt of ore with 68% of mineralisation in the ‘indicated’ category at the project.
CMG has been trading flat at 16 cents.
State Gas (ASX:GAS) is up more than 20% after securing an exploration grant of $5.5 million from the Queensland Government’s Frontier Gas Exploration Program to fund exploration activities to further delineate gas resources and reserves within the company’s
Rolleston West coal seam gas (“CSG”) project, through drilling of two new vertical wells.
GAS has been trading at 14 cents.
