ASX closes higher as miners surge; Tech shares plunge

The Australian sharemarket closed in the green on Wednesday as investors piled into mining and energy shares, while gold continued its recovery from its slump earlier in the week.

The S&P/ASX 200 finished the day 0.8 per cent or 70.7 points higher, at 8927.80, thanks largely to the performance of two of the market’s biggest sectors: miners and banks.

Mining stocks surged as commodity prices strengthened, with gold and silver rebounding to continue their wild swings in recent days. Among gold miners, Northern Star soared 6.2 per cent and Evolution Mining climbed 3.9 per cent, while silver giant South32 rose 6.2 per cent.

A jump in copper prices helped to boost the market’s biggest miners, with BHP bouncing 4.5 per cent and Rio Tinto surging 4.3 per cent, while iron ore miner Fortescue rose 1.7 per cent.

It was also a positive day for the major banks, led by the biggest financial institution in Australia, Commonwealth Bank, which ended the day 2.6 per cent higher. Westpac gained 1.5 per cent, National Australia Bank climbed 2.1 per cent, ANZ Bank rose 0.8 per cent, while investment giant Macquarie Group shed 1.4 per cent.

The country’s biggest banks have all said they will pass on Tuesday’s rise in official interest rates in full, after the Reserve Bank hiked rates for the first time in more than two years.

Energy giants had a strong session after a rise in oil prices, with Woodside (up 3.1 per cent), Santos (up 3.4 per cent) and Ampol (up 1 per cent), all closing in the green.

Local technology shares tanked after heavy falls on Wall Street’s Nasdaq overnight, with Xero diving 15.9 per cent, WiseTech tumbling 10.7 per cent and TechnologyOne diving 10.5 per cent.

Capital.com senior market analyst Kyle Rodda said the recent volatility in commodities had continued after the dramatic sell-off in precious metals last week.

“Precious metals prices continue to fishtail as positioning continues to normalise and price action sparks swings in sentiment,” he said.

“After the sort of sell-off seen in the markets on Friday and Monday, it often takes several days, if not longer, for efficiency to return.”

The Australian dollar was trading at US70.28¢ at 12.38pm AEDT.

Overnight, the S&P 500 fell 0.8 per cent and pulled further from its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones dipped 166 points, or 0.3 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.4 per cent.

Several influential Big Tech stocks weighed on the market, including drops of 2.8 per cent for Nvidia and 2.9 per cent for Microsoft. Such giants have been hampered by worries that their stock prices shot too high and became too expensive following their years-long dominance of the market.

Stocks of software companies and others seen as potential losers to competitors powered by artificial intelligence also slumped. ServiceNow fell 7 per cent to bring its loss for the young year so far to 28.3 per cent.

Such declines dragged the S&P 500 to its fourth loss in the last five days, even though the majority of stocks in the index rose. That included a 6.8 per cent climb for Palantir Technologies, which reported a bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its forecast for 61 per cent growth in revenue this year also topped analysts’ expectations.

Some of the day’s strongest action remained in the metals markets. Gold’s price climbed 6.1 per cent to settle at $US4935 ($7042) per ounce in the latest swing since its jaw-dropping rally suddenly halted last week. Silver’s price, which has been whipping through even wilder moves, rallied 8.2 per cent.

Gold and silver prices had been climbing for more than a year as investors looked for safer places to park their cash amid worries about everything from tariffs to a weaker US dollar to heavy debt loads for governments worldwide. Their prices took off in particular last month, and gold’s price at one point had roughly doubled over 12 months.

But those rallies suddenly gave out last week, and gold’s price dropped from close to $US5600 to less than $US4500 on Monday. Silver plunged 31.4 per cent on Friday alone.

Many traders say that what turned the momentum was expectations that President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates high to fight inflation, though some disagree. Most agree that simple gravity took over afterward.

After gold and silver prices had shot up so much, so quickly, they were bound to fall back at some point, particularly with so many investors piling in to gold as a way to bet on continued weakness for the US dollar.

“The move underscored how stretched anti-USD positioning had become,” according to strategists at Barclays.

On Wall Street, PayPal dropped 20.3 per cent after reporting weaker results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also named a new chief executive after it said “the pace of change and execution” over the last two years “was not in line” with the board of directors’ expectations.

Pfizer fell 3.3 per cent even though it reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The pharmaceutical company gave a forecasted range for profit in 2026 whose midpoint was below analysts’ expectations.

The Walt Disney Co. slipped 0.2 per cent after it said Josh D’Amaro, head of the company’s parks business, will become its next CEO in March.

With AP, AAP

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