The Australian sharemarket bounced on Monday from its worst one-day loss since US President Donald Trump’s “liberation day”, after $65 billion was wiped from the market on Friday, with investors snapping up technology and mining stocks.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 132.20 points, or by 1.5% to 8841 at 10.10am AEDT, with all 11 sectors up. It comes after Friday’s pullback of 2%, driven by sliding commodity prices, concerns about AI and a dive in bitcoin triggered broad equity derisking.
After falling nearly 13% last week on concerns artificial intelligence capex, the ASX tech sector had a strong start to Monday on dip buying as WiseTech Global rallied 4.6%, NextDC 4.8% and TechnologyOne 4.9%.
Miners were buoyed by a rebound in commodity prices with gold up 4% towards $US5000 an ounce and silver up 1.7% so far this session to $US79.15. Newmont soared 5.1%, Northern Star 2.2%, South32 3.4% and BHP by 2.2%.
Reporting season also started to ramp up as Car Group rocketed 10.1% after it met market expectations with a profit came of $143 million. The profit, which was up 16% came as it expected single-digit revenue growth in Australia for the remainder of the financial year.
Moomoo Australia market strategist Michael McCarthy said Australian shares would continue to be volatile this week as reporting season ramps up with expectations u-shaped, with analysts’ consensus pointing to low double-digit percentage gains,
“Recent volatility and price pressure in gold, silver, cryptocurrencies and technology stocks means investors remain on edge. Company results could once again drive big single stock reactions, pushing stocks to soar on strong numbers and sink on less than perfect results.”
Seek edged up 0.5% as it will recognise a $356 million post-tax impairment charge in its first-half results, tied to its investment in China-based job platform Zhaopin. The blow will see Seek’s investment in Zhaopin fall from a value of $529 million to $182 million.
Pepper Money surged 25% as it confirmed a $2.60 per share takeover bid from Challenger to acquire 100% of the company. Shares in Challenger fell 3.7%.
Web Travel surged 10.5% as it reiterated its full-year earnings guidance of $147 million to $155 million, after its shares slid almost 30% on Friday from news that its Spanish subsidiary would be audited.
Dexus Convenience Retail REIT climbed 2.3% after it reported a statutory net profit of $35.8 million for the half year to December 31, up from $14.7 million a year earlier.
Argo Investments rose 0.9% after a half-year profit of $130.8 million in the first half, and lifted its fully franked interim dividend to a record 18.5¢ a share.