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Welcome to HotCopper’s Market Close, and here’s to hoping you’re having a good end of the week, even in this sea of red.
The ASX200 finished down point four percent dipping just below the 8,300pts level which we only recently crossed for the first time.
Energy ended up in the green as brent crude prices jumped through the day and led the market up point four percent. Materials, conversely, was the worst performer down nearly two percent as iron ore prices took a hit.
But there’s perhaps a bigger story being missed – Australia’s not really having a Santa rally right now. While the ASX is up 7 percent over the last 6 months, on a two-week basis, the ASX200 index has fallen since the start of December. Talk about a bummer.
Looking at company news and going to stocks in the green.
Mesoblast jumped just shy of 14% on Friday on no news as some HotCopper users wondered whether the company wasn’t about to announce something big. The stock has had a pretty good year so far, up 500%, and the nature of that momentum had some asking if Friday’s rise was borne from a leaky ship.
Meso last traded at $1.84.
Elsewhere, the highly illiquid but curiosity-raising company Xamble, which connects businesses with social media influencers, ended up 30% higher – to 2.6 cents – after it received a $1.5M investment from Seven Eleven Malaysia.
Finally, wealth managers AMP Limited jumped 1.3% despite having no news, but upside may have come from revelations the company has invested $27M into crypto. While that reflects less than 0.10% of its total funds, it’s a first for Australia – and if it’s not a good investment, it could be a good PR stunt.
AMP closed at $1.58 cents.
With materials being the weakest sector today, it’s unsurprising some of the big miners recorded share price falls. Thus, Rio Tinto dropped by 2.8%, despite reporting positive news in the form of a $2.5M expansion of its Rincon lithium project in Argentina.
Gold miner Ramelius Resources was also a weak performer, falling 4.2% only one day after publishing a prefeasibility study for its Rebecca-Roe gold project. The PFS showed the project to have a net present value of A$332 billion, presuming a gold price of 3.5K Australian per ounce. Ramelius closed at $2.30 a share.
Finally, HMC Capital Ltd was in the red, despite having no news out and the financial sector being in the green. HMC was down 7.24%; it backed the DigiCo data centre REIT float today, which also stumbled out the gate.
That’s Market Close, I’m Jonathon Davidson, from HotCopper, have a great weekend and we’ll see you on Monday.
