24-05-2025
ASX treads water on Friday as Rio Tinto slides, banks advance
The big four banks are in positive territory. National Australia Bank added 0.9 per cent; Commonwealth Bank, the biggest company on the ASX, added 0.7 per cent; ANZ Bank rose 0.8 per cent; and Westpac closed flat.
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Energy stocks are mixed. Woodside was down 0.6 per cent and Santos added 0.5 per cent.
Power and gas supplier Origin Energy slipped 1.1 per cent on expectations of a $55 million half-year earnings hit after agreeing to cut the price of giant liquefied natural gas cargoes it ships from Queensland to China's Sinopec.
Sinopec, which holds a 25 per cent stake in the Origin Energy-backed Australia Pacific LNG joint venture on Queensland's Curtis Island and is also its major customer, had asked for a review of its long-term LNG purchase agreement to reflect sliding international oil and gas prices.
The global gas market is facing the prospect of an oversupply in the second half of this decade as a wave of new production projects come online.
Myer closed 5.4 per cent up after issuing a trading update that showed sales had declined across the recently acquired Apparel Brands, but it had overall a modest uptick in sales across its department store business.
Myer's total sales lifted 1.9 per cent to $837.2 million for the second half of fiscal 2025 to date (16 weeks). Total sales at Apparel Brands, which includes Jay Jays, Dotti, Portmans, Just Jeans and Jacqui E, fell 3.9 per cent to $211.2 million.
Chief executive Olivia Wirth blamed higher discounts across the retail sector, higher costs of doing business and the cost of fixing a robot warehouse bungle as factors behind the financial performance. The group will host its investor strategy day next Wednesday.
The ASX lost 0.5 per cent on Thursday. The Australian dollar regained losses from overnight to be 0.3 per cent higher at US64.31¢ at 12.40pm AEST.
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Wall Street trading remained choppy throughout most of the day following Wednesday's big slump for the S&P 500. That loss has put the benchmark index on track for its worst week in the past seven.
The S&P 500 slipped 2.60 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, to close at 5842.01. The Dow Jones fell 1.35 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, to 41,859.09. The Nasdaq composite rose 53.09 points, or 0.3 per cent to 18,925.73.
Technology stocks did most of the heavy lifting for Wall Street. The majority of stocks within the S&P 500 lost ground, but gains for technology companies with outsized values offset those losses. Google's parent Alphabet jumped 1.4 per cent and Nvidia rose 0.8 per cent.
The choppy trading this week and the sharp decline for stocks on Wednesday follow several weeks of mostly gains that had brought the S&P 500 back within 5 per cent of its all-time high.
'We've had a good bounce here, but the market is looking for some excuse to take some money off the table,' said Wells Fargo Investment Institute senior global market strategist Scott Wren.
