ASX inches higher as miners, energy giants shine

Welcome to your recap of the trading day.

The numbers

The S&P/ASX 200 closed 12.7 points higher on Thursday, up 0.1 per cent, to 8777.2, as the broader All Ordinaries lifted 9.8 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 9067.4. Four of 11 local sectors closed higher, led by rallies in raw materials and energy stocks, while utilities and consumer discretionary plays eked out modest gains.

The Australian dollar is buying US65.95¢, easing from US66.16¢ on Wednesday at 5pm and roughly 1.7 per cent short of last week’s 11-month high.

The lifters

The bright spot on the ASX was the energy sector (up 1.9 per cent), as Woodside rose 2.5 per cent, Santos lifted 2.1 per cent and Whitehaven Coal gained 1.2 per cent. The rally came as oil prices hit a seven-week high overnight after a surprise drop in US crude inventories and escalating Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in recent weeks.

The materials sector was also stronger (up 1.6 per cent): mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto each rose 3.9 per cent after the copper price moved higher.

Premier Investments shares gained 0.2 per cent to $20.34, after the group’s profits lifted 31.1 per cent to $338.2 million, due in part to the sale of Apparel Brands (Jay Jays, Just Jeans, Dotti, Portmans and Jacqui E) to Myer. Premier, which owns retailers Smiggle and Peter Alexander, grew sales by 0.9 per cent to $812.2 million in the 2025 financial year. Peter Alexander’s strong sales growth of 7.7 per cent was offset by Smiggle’s 10.7 per cent decline.

Shares in Nine Entertainment, which owns this masthead, were 0.4 per cent higher after the company said Catherine West had resigned as chair less than 18 months after taking the role. West will be replaced by a former deputy chair of the ABC, Peter Tonagh, who will take on the top job after joining the Nine board earlier this year.

The broader communications sector dropped 0.3 per cent as Telstra lost 0.6 per cent, but REA Group added 0.1 per cent.

The laggards

Banks were mixed as the financial sector fell 0.2 per cent. Commonwealth Bank – the largest stock on the bourse – lost 0.5 per cent, Westpac gained 0.9 per cent, ANZ Bank moved 0.3 per cent higher and National Australia Bank added 0.3 per cent after early losses. Macquarie Group fell 1.2 per cent after the investment group agreed to compensate the victims of the Shield Master Fund collapse. Financial planners using the Macquarie platform pumped $321 million of people’s life savings into the allegedly rogue investment scheme.

Consumer staples, healthcare stocks and real estate plays were the weakest performers.

The lowdown

Australia’s sharemarket has finished marginally higher after a choppy trading session, with a rally in miners digging the bourse out of trouble, after US stock indexes drifted lower while a seemingly relentless rally on Wall Street takes a pause.

The weak day followed the bourse’s worst session since the beginning of September on Wednesday, as Wall Street exuberance faded following cautious comments from the Federal Reserve, and after local price growth overshot expectations.

“Inflation came in slightly hotter than expected, with the consumer price index rising 3 per cent year-on-year in August, above both consensus at 2.9 per cent and July’s 2.8 per cent,” Moomoo dealings manager Jimmy Tran said.

“This places inflation back at the top of the Reserve Bank’s 2 per cent to 3 per cent target range, tempering expectations for further rate cuts this year, and adding to yesterday’s selling pressure.”

Overnight, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3 per cent for a second straight, modest loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 171 points, or 0.4 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.4 per cent. All three are still near their all-time highs, which were set on Monday.

Wall Street’s slowdown comes following the US sharemarket’s blistering run since hitting a low in April, fuelled by hopes that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs won’t derail global trade and that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates several times to boost the US economy. The rally was so big that it raised concerns about stock prices shooting too high and becoming too expensive, particularly if the Fed does not deliver as many cuts to rates as traders expect.

Demonstrating the weight of high expectations, Micron Technology’s stock fell 2.8 per cent even though it reported a better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The computer memory company also gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that blew past analysts’ expectations.

Typically, such a performance would send a stock higher. But Micron’s stock came into the day with an atypical, stunning gain of 97.7 per cent for the year so far.

Freeport-McMoRan sank 17 per cent for one of the market’s larger losses after the miner said it expected sales of copper to be 4 per cent lower in the third quarter than it had earlier forecast. It also said sales of gold could be roughly 6 per cent lower than earlier expected.

On the winning side of Wall Street was Lithium Americas. It soared 95.8 per cent following reports that the US government was considering taking an ownership stake in the Canadian company, which is developing a lithium project with General Motors in Nevada.

Lithium Americas, based in Vancouver, said it was in talks with the US Department of Energy and GM about drawing on a previously announced $US2.26 billion ($3.4 billion) loan from the government. The Energy Department was making “incremental requests” to add more conditions before Lithium Americas could make its first draw, among other things, the company said.

Under Trump, the US government has already taken a 10 per cent ownership stake in Intel, the struggling computer chip company.

Home builders’ stocks also rose after a report said US sales of new homes were stronger in August than economists had forecast and unexpectedly accelerated.

Lennar climbed 2 per cent, while PulteGroup and D.R. Horton both added 0.7 per cent.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 18.95 points to 6637.97. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 171.50 to 46,121.28, and the Nasdaq composite sank 75.62 to 22,497.86.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.4 per cent, and France’s CAC 40 fell 0.6 per cent for two of the bigger moves.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.14 per cent from 4.12 per cent late on Tuesday.

With AAP, AP

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