On the day the best performing stock on the benchmark index was payments processor Tyro Payments. Its shares jumped 17.5 per cent, despite releasing no news to the market.
The worst performer was explosives business Orica, whose shares fell 9.3 per cent to $15.60 after it said it had completed a $650 million institutional capital raising at $16 per share via the issue of 40.6 million new shares.
Among commodities, the Platts S&P Iron Ore Index price fell 4.6 per cent to $US108.10 a tonne, with gold adding 0.7 per cent over the session to fetch $US1788 an ounce at the closing bell. Benchmark Brent crude futures traded 0.1 per cent lower at $US90.71.
The yield on the benchmark, risk-free, US 10-year Treasury rate fell 3 basis points to 2.72 per cent, with the yield on Australian 10-year government bonds up 5 basis points to 2.96 per cent.
Mr Sherwood said he is not convinced that sharemarkets have bottomed. “I don’t think we’ve reached a turning point, I still think there’s more downside to equities because in the end all the lead indicators of the US economy have rolled over,” he said.
“The yield curve is inverted, and I think that’ll lead to some pretty sizeable downgrades for what I still think are optimistic earnings expectations. The earnings risk is not priced in and that’s going to be the Achilles heel for the market over the second half of the year, at the moment I just think it’s a short squeeze.”
On Friday morning in Australia, a host of US tech and industrial companies will report their April-June results including Afterpay’s owner, Block. Analysts expect the payments, bitcoin and buy now, pay later group to deliver $US4.76 billion ($6.9 billion) second-quarter revenue. Others to report include Twilio, Atlassian, Beyond Meat and Eli Lilly.
On Thursday in Europe the Bank of England is expected to increase rates 0.5 of a percentage point to 1.75 per cent after inflation hit 9.4 per cent in the United Kingdom in June.
Company news
In the first week of Australia’s FY2022 reporting season, mining contractor NRW Holdings upgraded its EBITDA guidance to $157 million, up from previous guidance of $150 million-$155 million. Its shares firmed 10.9 per cent to $2.13.
Magellan Financial Group said its assets under management fell $1.1 billion to $60.2 billion in July. Net outflows equalled $2.5 billion on net retail outflows of $0.4 billion and net institutional outflows of $2.1 billion.
Elsewhere, biotech Mesoblast placed its shares in a trading halt and said it will undertake a private placement to raise cash, without providing further details.
Broker Citi slapped a sell rating on Qantas shares and lowered its price target almost 20 per cent. It said the flag carrier will have to wind back staff cuts and limit capacity to solve operational issues. Analyst Samuel Seow estimated Qantas had cancelled 8.1 per cent of services in June
Among the banks, ANZ emerged as the second of the big four to pass on higher interest rates to customers. It said it will increase all variable interest rates for its Australian home loans by 0.5 of a percentage point per annum from August 12. The move follows CBA and Macquarie, which have each passed on the RBA’s Tuesday 50 basis point increase to their customers.
