Market Close: ASX at 3-week lows, but Wall Street futures green Weds arvo

Good Afternoon and welcome to HotCopper’s Market Close for Wednesday, I’m Jon Davidson. The market hit three week lows this week as Wall Street proves to be a wet blanket kicking off September; not helping matters, hotter than expected Aussie GDP showing a resilient consumer – suggesting the RBA doesn’t need to immediately cut rates in September. 

Note: Post-settlement after close, information relayed here may or may not remain fully accurate.

And for those who aren’t deciding to hear no evil, there’s also the fact our latest inflation read came in hotter than expected. But that isn’t why the market fell on Wednesday. It was already falling, driven by Wall Street, which appears to be subdued due to a mix of the September rule where shares go down; the impact of NVIDIA’s latest earnings that showed Data Centre growth slowing; and, jitters around Trump meddling with the Fed. 

When the US coughs, the world gets a cold. And that was evident on the ASX today, with every sector in the red intraday. But it was a good day to be a gold explorer, and in other good news, US futures were green in afternoon trades.

Anyway. What about companies in the green? 

Terra Uranium continued to rise on no news intraday, that former uranium explorer has recently pivoted to rare earths and antimony assets in the US, inking a deal with Axiom in late August to pick those up into its portfolio. 

In a similar vein, ABX Group meanwhile shot up after the Australian nuclear regulator, which handle all rare earth testwork in the country due to minor radioactivity, showed extractions over 70% for key heavy rare earths which were leached from ore using a solution as acidic as apple juice, adding a bit of ESG flair to the company’s trending basket of minerals. 

And finally, nanocap Bubalus Gold was firmly green afterday even after reporting one 8m intercept grading at over 20 grams of tonne per gold based on historical data the company noted it couldn’t actually verify and so shouldn’t be considered part of any future resource. Investors didn’t care  – which shows you that the explorer side of the market is a different story to the XJO. 

And as for companies in the red, 

Woolworths steeply red on Wednesday clocking an intraday decline of nearly -20% week on week. Investors continue to ditch the stock which, after a few years being on top, severely lost out to Coles in the latest confessions season.

Afterpay owners Block meanwhile fell around -5% intraday tracking poor performance on Wall Street where the company’s dual listed, as a shock to the US tech sector currently defines the beginning of the September trading month.

Finally, Commonwealth Bank got slogged nearly -3% intraday, bringing its market cap below $280B, presumably in part as investors rotate into gold.

That’s Market Close for Wednesday, I’m Jon Davidson, have a great night and we’ll see you on Thursday.