Energy companies and banks buoy ASX

The Australian sharemarket clawed back early losses in its first trading session of 2026, ringing in the new year in positive territory despite investors losing confidence in tech companies and utilities.

The S&P/ASX 200 index climbed 13.5 points, or 0.2 per cent, on Friday, closing at 8727.8 points on the back of optimism for energy companies and banks.

Six of the 11 industrial sectors ended the day higher, helping to buoy the local bourse after it closed down 2.8 points at 8714.3 on Wednesday. The sharemarket was closed on New Year’s Day. The Australian dollar was stronger, cracking US67¢ during Friday’s session.

Energy firms were among the top performers with heavyweight Woodside gaining 0.3 per cent as crude oil prices rose to $US57.5 a barrel on Friday. Over the past month, crude’s price has fallen 1.9 per cent, and it is down 21.4 per cent compared with the same time last year, says Trading Economics.

Coal miners Yancoal (up 1 per cent) and Whitehaven (up 0.8 per cent) also gained ground. Banks ended the day stronger, with the country’s biggest bank, CBA, climbing 0.3 per cent along with Westpac (up 0.9 per cent), NAB (up 0.2 per cent) and ANZ (up 0.2 per cent).

Life360 was among the worst-performing large-cap companies, losing 3.2 per cent, while Xero shed 1.6 per cent, both contributing to a 0.5 per cent fall in the tech sector. Utilities were also weaker, with shares in Origin Energy slipping 1.3 per cent and Mercury NZ’s sliding 0.4 per cent.

The resources sector was a mixed bag with lithium companies leading the way and gold miners slumping. Lithium miner Pls Group (up 2.1 per cent) was the top-performing large-cap company and Mineral Resources jumped 2 per cent.

Iron ore giants BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue all closed 0.6 per cent higher, but shares in gold miner Northern Star plummeted 8.6 per cent after it revised down its annual production guidance following unplanned issues with its Kalgoorlie mine.

Despite recent falls, gold and silver remain at record highs, supported by strong demand for safe-haven assets amid mounting geopolitical risks and by interest-rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve. The so-called debasement trade – triggered by fears of inflation and swelling debt burdens in developed economies – has helped supercharge their scorching rally.

In gold, the bigger market by far, those factors spurred a rush by investors into bullion-backed exchange-traded funds, while central banks extended a years-long buying spree. Spot gold hovered about $US4320 ($6473) an ounce, while silver slid towards $US71.

Jimmy Tran, dealing manager at trading platform Moomoo, said traders’ attention will shift to a heavy run of early-January economic data. “[This data is] expected to set the tone for markets as 2026 trading gets under way,” he said.

Meanwhile, Wall Street’s major indexes ended lower in the final trading session of 2025 but notched big annual gains after a roller coaster year dominated by President Donald Trump’s tariff uncertainties and a euphoria around AI-focused stocks.

“I do not expect that the last few days will have so much bearing on the performance of the next year, it’s perfectly fine in any bull market to have moments of cost,” said Giuseppe Sette, co-founder and president of Reflexivity, pointing to profit-taking opportunities when liquidity was low.

Wall Street made a stellar comeback from April’s lows when Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs sparked a meltdown in global markets, sent investors away from US stocks and threatened growth by clouding the interest rate outlook.

For the year, the S&P 500 gained 16.39 per cent, the Nasdaq rose 20.36 per cent and the Dow climbed 12.97 per cent. The Russell 2000 small-cap index rose 11.26 per cent.

Still, the benchmark S&P 500 index’s annual gain trails some global indexes, especially the Asia-Pacific ex-Japan measure, which rallied nearly 27 per cent in 2025, as stock investors diversified.

“We expect this broadening of performance to deepen in 2026, both within the US and across international markets,” said Jitania Kandhari, deputy chief information officer of the solutions and multi-asset group at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

“The era of narrow winners is giving way to a wider, more globally distributed opportunity set. Equal-weighted S&P looks good relative to cap-weighted S&P.”

With Bloomberg, Reuters

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