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Good Afternoon and welcome to Market Close for Wednesday of Week 49, I’m Jon Davidson. If you were watching the intraday chart for the ASX200 today, you’d be forgiven for thinking you could have been looking at a chart from April 2nd.
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The ABS released weaker than expected GDP data today with growth coming in at point four percent quarter-on-quarter versus expectations for point seven percent growth; immediately upon release, the ASX200 tanked, briefly wiping off all gains made in the first hour of trade.
However, thirty six minutes later, it was where it was trading right before the data drop, in what is one of the more memorable local examples of a V-shaped recovery in recent history. But then an hour later, we started to decline again, and the XJO pared off nearly all its gains for a second time in one day, though not as steeply as the low at 11.24AM.
What does this all mean? Well, long story short, the market has no idea what to make of today’s GDP data. Or in other words, sentiment is fairly 50/50 split. State Street analysis suggested the GDP data wasn’t too rosy, while Oxford Economics saw positivity underneath the numbers, with household spending on the mend.
Ultimately, it looks like you can make today’s GDP numbers mean whatever you want them to mean. Looking at sectors, Utilities led gainers while Health Care led the laggards once again.
(Oh, and by the way – silver prices are nearly +90% higher YoY, outpacing gold at this point, but perhaps don’t get too long-term confident, because if gold goes down again, it’ll follow.)
Let’s turn to the companies in the green.
Predictive Discovery the top gainer intraday after heavyweight Perseus Mining came back to the company with an improved takeover offer, pushing shares in Predictive to above 70c.
Lung imaging company 4D Medical meanwhile had a bounceback in enthusiasm as the darling biotech announced a new $10M contract; it also threw an investor preso on Tuesday.
Finally, uranium player Boss Energy jumped over 5% in afternoon trades along with peer Bannerman Energy based on no news and, curiously, following a decline in uranium prices on futures markets.
And as for companies in the red.
More pain for CSL Ltd on Wednesday, which is kind of like the Magnificent 1 stock of Australia’s healthcare sector, falling half a percent in afternoon trades bringing year to date returns down negative -35%.
Robex Resources meanwhile fell nearly -12%, a victim of Perseus Mining’s improved offer for Predictive. Robex had also been going for the latter, clearly, the market’s not liking its chances.
Finally, KFC chicken supplier Collins Foods fell over -5% on Wednesday, one day after issuing an FY26 outlook that was well received on Tuesday. It looks like traders had already set take-profit orders, given shares slumped right out the gate well ahead of GDP data.
That’s Market Close, I’m Jon Davidson, have a great night and we’ll see you on Thursday.
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