Good Afternoon and welcome to Market Close, I’m Jon Davidson. The ASX slid downwards in the arvo as Bullock told the market don’t get too hype about an August rate cut.
Looking at the 50 basis points of cuts so far this year, you could say that the RBA is managing around 1 cut per quarter. With America’s tariff regime tipped to go live next Friday, there’s no way of telling what will happen. That’s because modern history provides no useful advice.
We get fresh Aussie CPI data next week; that’s the last major data before the August RBA meeting.
Looking at sectors, Real Estate among the worst laggards after Bullock’s comments; Health Care led as the sector catches up to recent strength in materials. That observation may or may not still be the case once the market settles.
Turning to companies in the green,
Warriedar Resources soared after a takeover offer from $4B cap Capricorn Metals, despite a green day for the stock, many HotCopper users weren’t happy with the takeover price of 15cps.
Fortescue meanwhile green on Thursday on its latest quarterly; the more interesting story there perhaps that Fortescue’s culled two big hydrogen projects, even deleting both off its website. That comes after Albanese spent a lot of time spruiking hydrogen alongside Xi Jinping last week.
Finally, tech nanocap iSynergy shot up on low volumes on a non-binding MOU with NASDAQ-listed Malaysia-based Treasure Global towards a potential AI data centre in Malaysia.
So what about the reds?
Boss Energy red as the market learned MD Duncan Craib is stepping down in late September; though he’s set to come back as a non executive director on January 1 – suggesting the man may just need a few months to chill out.
Meanwhile, autos heavyweight Bapcor led laggards intraday after its latst trading update; second half revenue fell versus pcp as it flagged a “challenging retail environment” – a phrase investors clearly winced at.
Finally, and perhaps adding context to Michelle Bullock’s statements earlier today, battery tech player NOVONIX in the red after the market didn’t care for its quarterly update; the company says US tariffs are a spanner in its works given it’s entirely unclear what exactly will happen in the months ahead.
That’s Market Close, I’m Jon Davidson, I’m off until Tuesday but we’ll have an end of day wrap of some description for you tomorrow. Until then, have a great evening and good luck for Friday.