ASX slips after Trump tariffs drama; banks and tech shares slide

The Australian sharemarket slumped on Monday, with technology shares posting the sharpest falls, as investors reacted to the latest developments in US President Donald Trump’s trade war.

The S&P/ASX 200 fell 55.40 points or 0.6 per cent to 9026.00, with eight of 11 industry sectors in negative territory. The decline comes after the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Saturday (AEDT), but Trump’s promise a day later to reimpose them at 15 per cent for all nations has led to uncertainty on global markets.

The major financial stocks were lower across the board. Commonwealth Bank was down 0.6 per cent, National Australia Bank fell 0.9 per cent, Westpac lost 1.2 per cent, ANZ Group dropped 2.3 per cent and Macquarie Group shed 2.4 per cent.

Technology was the worst performing sector. WiseTech was down 5.2 per cent, Xero 2.9 per cent and NextDC 4.1 per cent.

Mining stocks were mostly higher. BHP gained 1.4 per cent, while gold miners climbed as the price of the safe haven see-sawed over the weekend. Northern Star added 3.4 per cent and Evolution Mining advanced 3.5 per cent. Rio Tinto shed 1.3 per cent and Fortescue lost 0.3 per cent.

Energy stocks were lower. Santos slumped 2.3 per cent, while Woodside Energy fell 1.2 per cent and Yancoal lost 1.3 per cent. Ampol fell 2.1 per cent after announcing higher earnings, but a 33 per cent drop in net profit.

Online retail giant Kogan.com jumped 5.5 per cent after lifting gross sales by 16 per cent to $572.4 million and boosting gross profits by 8 per cent to $114.2 million.

The online electronics retailer’s exclusive label and third-party brands grew strongly during the first half of the financial year. Toy and gaming retail platform Mighty Ape recorded lower revenue, gross profits and negative earnings, but the company said the turnaround was “well advanced” with a new focus on rebuilding inventory with new ranges.

The company has declared a fully franked interim dividend of 8¢ per share, a 14.3 per cent increase on the interim dividend announced last year.

Upstart telecommunications provider Aussie Broadband is barrelling towards becoming the nation’s third-largest NBN provider, lifting revenue and upgrading earnings guidance in its half-year results on Monday.

The company reported H1 FY26 revenue of $637.8 million, up 8.4 per cent, with underlying EBITDA jumping 13.5 per cent to $74.7 million. ​The company also upgraded its earnings outlook for the year and says it now has the scale, brand and product set to keep stealing share from larger incumbents. The company’s shares fell 2.7 per cent.

Homewares store Adairs gained 10.5 per cent after recording a 5.9 per cent lift in revenue from continuing operations to nearly $329 million after gaining momentum in the second quarter following lots of discounting in the first quarter.

Despite the uplift in sales, the group’s net profit after tax slid 33.8 per cent and gross margins declined by 120 basis points to 58.7 per cent.

The company has declared an interim fully franked dividend of 5.5¢ per share, a slight decrease from last year’s interim dividend of 6.5¢ per share. In the first seven weeks of trading in the new financial year, group sales are up 6.4 per cent.

Harvey Norman dipped 1.3 per cent after revealing it had been hit by a class action claim over the “interest-free” payment methods provided by Latitude Finance that the Federal Court found did mislead customers by charging monthly account service fees.

“Harvey Norman intends to defend the proceedings vigorously,” said a statement by the company.

The Australian dollar strengthened over the weekend and was trading at US70.73¢ at 12.32pm AEDT.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.7 per cent. It had been flipping between small gains and losses before the court’s ruling, following discouraging reports showing slowing growth for the US economy and faster inflation.

The Dow Jones added 230 points, or 0.5 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.9 per cent.

Many on Wall Street were probably expecting such a tariff ruling from the Supreme Court, Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, said. That most likely led to the relatively muted reactions across financial markets, and trading remained tentative as investors tried to understand the long-term effects.

Trump said that the Supreme Court’s ruling had other countries “dancing in the streets, but they won’t be dancing for long”.

With AP

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