The Australian sharemarket rose the most since US President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” as broad advances across risk assets took hold as bargain hunters returned to technology and gold stocks.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index climbed 161.30 points, or 1.9%, to 8870.10 – the biggest rise since April 8, when stocks rose 2.3%, and follows Friday’s 2% slide that wiped about $65 billion from the market in the sharpest fall since April 7, 2025.
IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said that the Australian market remained driven by offshore events with a strong PMI reading from the US on Friday helping to snap market jitters, while the re-election of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi further added to sentiment.
“The Japanese LDP coalition securing a super majority paves the way for the Prime Minister to push through stimulus measures across defence spending and infrastructure, giving the Nikkei a solid lift and lifting regional stock markets with it,” he said.
“We’re playing just prisoner to the events on the global stage and with that, we’re seeing massive amounts of money wiped off our stock market, and then just as quickly added back onto it. We must be due for a bit of a lull as we can’t keep going at this pace.”
After falling nearly 13% last week on concerns about AI capex and redundancy of software makers, tech saw strong gains as WiseTech Global rallied 3.6% to $49.30 and TechnologyOne 3.5% to $22.63.
Data centre operators rallied as Commonwealth Bank said Australia was one of the world’s top destinations for artificial intelligence investment, ranking behind only the US and China. NextDC rallied 4.9% to $13.33, Goodman 6.5% to $30.76 and Megaport 5.2% to $10.84.
Miners were buoyed by a rebound in commodity prices, with gold above $US5000 an ounce and silver up 5.2% to $US81.86. Newmont soared 6.5% to $164.92, Ora Banda 12.2% to $1.19, South32 3.2% to $4.55, and BHP by 1.9% to $49.73.
Reporting season also started to ramp up with CAR Group rocketing 9.9% to $26.91 after it met market expectations with an adjusted profit of $196 million, while strong transaction intelligence growth helped to ease investor concerns.
Seek fell 1.3% to $18.07 as it recognised a $356 million post-tax impairment charge in its first-half results, tied to its investment in China-based job platform Zhaopin.
Web Travel surged 18.6% to $3.51 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.
Pepper Money surged 28.4% to $2.26 as it confirmed a $2.60 per share takeover bid from Challenger to acquire 100% of the company. Shares in Challenger fell 3.6% to $8.60.
Dexus Convenience Retail REIT climbed 6.1% to $2.80 after the trust reported a statutory net profit of $35.8 million for the half year to December 31, up from $14.7 million a year earlier.