Shares inch up; Philip Lowe joins Future Generation board; WAM and QV Equities merge; Adairs chairman exits; Air NZ pauses Chicago route; Iron ore tumbles. Bitcoin tops $US72,000. Follow updates here.
Australian shares edged up, but a sharp fall in iron ore prices sent mining giants to their lowest levels this year with investors awaiting a US inflation report that will provide clues on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate path.
The S&P/ASX 200 added 0.1 per cent or 8.3 points to 7712.5 after wiping nearly $50 billion on Monday in the largest sell-off in more than a year as investors booked profit. All Ords also ended the session 0.1 per cent higher at 7973. Six of the index’s 11 sectors advanced as losses in energy offset gains in tech. The big banks trimmed early gains with National Australia Bank and Commonwealth Bank posting losses of up to 0.4 per cent. Former Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe was appointed to the Future Generation Australia board, his first role on a listed company since leaving the central bank last year. Also in the financial sector, QV Equities jumped 7 per cent to 99¢ and WAM Leaders gained 0.4 per cent to $1.395 on plans to merge. There was a lot of stock action in the commodity sector after iron ore prices futures extended a tumble. The most-traded May iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange dropped 3.4 per cent, the lowest since October on worries about demand for top consumer China. The poor sentiment sent shares in mining giants to 2024 lows. BHP dropped 0.7 per cent to a nine-month trough of $42.520. Fortescue shed 1.2 per cent to $24.75, a level last seen in December and Rio Tinto shaved off 0.2 per cent to $115.35, the lowest since October last year. “It’s going to be hard in the short term for investors to be bullish on names such as BHP and Rio Tinto with so much exposure to iron ore and the persistent issues facing China’s ‘steel-focused’ real estate and manufacturing sectors,” said Josh Gilbert, an analyst at eToro. It was a good session for lithium and gold miners. Pilbara Minerals advanced 4.3 per cent to $4.17 after signing a new offtake agreement with Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group. Bellevue Gold was the top performer on the ASX 200, up 10.3 per cent to $1.605 following a production update. Southern Cross Gold powered up 20.2 per cent to $2.05 on plans to list on a Canadian stock exchange. Alumina jumped more than 8 per cent to $1.275 after US aluminium giant Alcoa formalised its $3.3 billion all-stock bid. Investors were awaiting key US consumer price index which may reinforce or derail expectations of rate cuts in the US as early as June. Forecasts suggest a monthly increase of 0.4 per cent for the headline measure and a 0.3 per cent rise for the core gauge in February. In currencies, the Australian dollar held steady at US66.15¢, proving remarkably resilient to the sharp iron ore price correction. The local dollar is sensitive to the steel-making ingredient, Australia’s biggest export earner. Bitcoin topped a record of $US72,739.48 to trade at $US72,257 and ether climbed to a three-year peak of $US4093.70 after UK’s financial watchdog became the latest regulator to allow crypto-backed trading.