By Staff writers
The Australian sharemarket has climbed in early trade, buoyed by banks and tech stocks, after positive news on inflation helped push US shares higher overnight.
The ASX 200 was up 0.7 per cent in early trade, with nine of the market’s 11 sectors trading in the green. The gains came after the S&P 500 climbed 0.8 per cent, breaking a four-day losing streak, helped by inflation figures that raised hopes of interest rate cuts.
Wall Street had its best day in weeks.Credit: AP
Major banks, a key influence on the bourse, were all trading in positive territory, boosted by the more positive investor sentiment. Industry giant Commonwealth Bank rose 1.2 per cent, Westpac was up 1.6 per cent, National Australia Bank rose 1.5 per cent and ANZ Bank was up 1 per cent.
Macquarie Group rose 1.6 per cent after agreeing to a $35 million fine to resolve a court case from the corporate watchdog, while insurance companies were also higher.
Technology was the strongest sector, with WiseTech rising 2 per cent after the company announced it was taking no further action against founder Richard White after the completion of a review into the billionaire that was launched in 2024 following a series of allegations.
Accounting software group Xero also rose 2.1 per cent, while TechnologyOne (up 0.5 per cent), NextDC (up 1 per cent) and Life360 (up 0.9) also posted gains.
Mining shares were mixed, with iron ore powerhouses BHP (down 0.2 per cent) and Fortescue (down 1.2 per cent) losing ground, though Rio Tinto moved 0.3 per cent higher. Energy was the weakest sector on the ASX, with Woodside shedding 0.4 per cent and Santos moving 0.9 per cent lower.
The Australian dollar was trading at US66.13¢ at 11.12pm AEDT.
Elsewhere, TikTok has signed a deal to sell its US business to three American investors — Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX — ensuring the popular social video platform can continue operating in the United States.
The new TikTok US joint venture will be 50 per cent held by a consortium of new investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX with 15 per cent each. Another 30.1 per cent will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors and 19.9 per cent will be retained by ByteDance, according to the memo.
On Wall Street, some relief came from a report showing that inflation was less bad last month than economists expected. That could soothe nerves at the Fed, which is responsible for keeping inflation low and for keeping the job market strong.
Inflation is still higher than anyone would like, at 2.7 per cent last month, but if it creeps closer to the Fed’s target of 2 per cent, Fed officials could feel more free to cut interest rates to help a slowing job market. Wall Street loves lower rates because they can boost the economy and prices for investments, even if they may also worsen inflation.
To be sure, some along Wall Street said Thursday’s inflation update may not move the needle much at the Fed given how noisy economic reports have been following the US government’s earlier shutdown. Next month’s update on inflation could provide a better gauge of what’s actually happening. But a better-than-expected report on inflation is nevertheless better than the alternative.
Also helping to drive the US stock market was Micron Technology, the seller of memory and storage for computers, which rallied 10.2 per cent after reporting better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said each of the company’s business units enjoyed stronger revenue and made more in profit off each $US1 of that revenue.
Micron also gave forecasts for upcoming profit and revenue that blew past analysts’ expectations, and Mehrotra credited its position as an “AI enabler,” among other things.
Billions of dollars are flowing into artificial-intelligence technology, which helped superstar stocks like Nvidia lead the market for years.
But questions are rising about whether those stock prices shot too high and whether customers will get a good-enough return on their AI investments through bigger profits and productivity. Worries are also weighing on companies that are borrowing lots of money amid the AI frenzy.
Oracle and Broadcom have been at the centre of such concerns recently, and their stock prices had been falling sharply since last week despite both reporting better profits for the latest quarter than analysts expected. On Thursday, Oracle added 0.9 per cent, and Broadcom rose 1.1 per cent.
Nvidia, the chip company that’s become Wall Street’s most influential because of its immense size, gained 1.8 per cent.
Another winner was Trump Media & Technology Group, which jumped 41.9 per cent to trim some of its steep loss for the year so far, 69.3 per cent coming into the day. The company, which began with President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform and then moved into cryptocurrencies and various other lines of business, is now moving into nuclear power.
It’s merging with TAE Technologies in an all-stock deal, and each company will own roughly half of the combined business. The companies said the deal would pair TMTG’s ability to raise significant money by attracting investors with TAE’s technology. They hope to get TAE’s nuclear-fusion reactors, which would create power in a similar way as the sun does, running commercially.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose 0.6 per cent in London, 0.8 per cent in France and 1 per cent in Germany after the Bank of England cut its key interest rate and the European Central Bank kept its steady
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
