Gold miners, banks keep Australian shares afloat in holiday-thinned week
Australian banks jump; CBA soars to all-time high
Tech stocks decline, energy sector down 2%
By Sameer Manekar and Nichiket Sunil
April 22 (Reuters) - Australian shares ended little changed on Tuesday as volumes remained thin in a holiday-truncated week and a rush to safer assets like banks and gold miners offset a sell-off in tariff-exposed sectors such as technology and energy.
The S&P/ASX 200 index slipped marginally to finish at 7,816.70 points. Volumes were at their lowest in more than three weeks as trade resumed after a four-day weekend. Markets will be closed again on Friday.
An overnight flight from U.S. assets, sparked by President Donald Trump's relentless criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Powell, spilled into Australia's tech stocks that broadly tracks the Nasdaq index.
But a rush to gold miners and banks kept the benchmark afloat.
"The (ASX) market is actually outperforming the U.S. as the gold producers are holding the market up," said Jessica Amir, a market strategist at moomoo, predicting the case for gold to further solidify on rising demand.
Gold miners surged nearly 3% to finish at a record high as bullion continued to scale new peaks. The sub-index clocked its seventh straight day of gains.
Northern Star Resources and Evolution Mining jumped 3% and 4.9%, respectively, to finish at all-time highs.
The financials sub-index, dominated by the "Big Four" banks, jumped over 1% to a near seven-week high. Top lender Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) surged 4.2% to finish at its all-time high of A$168.00 per share.
"The Australian banks are seen as a safe haven. We're seeing quite a lot of buying in the CBA and it's up quite strongly against the market," said Jun Bei Liu, portfolio manager at TenCap, an investment management firm.
Tech stocks fell to a near two-week low, while the energy sector declined 1.9% on weak oil prices.
The mining and consumer staple stocks gained slightly, while healthcare and real estate fell up to 1%.
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