PEAK ASSET: ARVO WRAP 12 OCTOBER: ASX flat; healthcare stocks drop; Redbubble rallies | Lithium Power surges 20 per cent on buyout speculation | Australia’s biggest business mystery: Gina Rinehart’s lithium plans |

It’s all hands on deck as we get closer to the Spotlight 2023 Investor Conference.

If you’re in Perth, we’d love to see you at the Ritz on the 25th.

Our very own Niv Dagan joined The Market Bull for a chat on the event, as well as, to give an update on the current state of the markets highlighting uranium, lithium, gold and other areas.

Click here to watch the full interview.

Across Markets…

The Australian sharemarket closed flat on Thursday, ending a six-day rally as a sharp loss in healthcare stocks pared the index’s earlier gains. 

The benchmark S&P/ASX 20O added just 2.6 points to 7091 with six out of the 11 industry sectors in the green. The All Ordinaries up 6.1 points to 7287.4. The local currency was trading around US64.17¢, recovering from an 11-month low hit last week.

The healthcare sector tumbled 4.5 per cent and pared the rally in bank and real estate stocks. ASX heavyweight CSL extended its decline from yesterday, dropping 6.3 per cent to $238.24. Fisher and Paykel lost 4.4 per cent to $19.75.

Earlier in the trading session, the overnight release of US Federal Reserve board minutes bolstered hopes that interest rates have peaked, sparking a rally in growth stocks.

In the minutes, policymakers “noted that it was important to balance the risk of overtightening against the risk of insufficient tightening”. That helped buoy the US sharemarket. The S&P 500 gained 0.4 per cent and the Nasdaq rallied 0.7 per cent.

Part of the rally on Wall Street reflected a further easing of US government bond yields, as the yield on the US 10-year note slipped 10 basis points to 4.56 per cent at 4.15pm in New York.

“Bond yields have continued to calm and ease and from that we’ve seen te more interest rate sensitive companies rally with some money going back the property trust stocks, and other growth stocks,” TMS Capital portfolio manager Ben Clark in an interview. 

Real estate stocks were among the best performing. Goodman up 1.5 per cent to $22.46 and Westfield parent Scentre jumped 1.2 per cent to $2.55.

Among commodities, Brent Crude settled at $US85.62 a barrel, erasing most of the surge following Hamas’ weekend attacks on Israel.

Iron ore futures on the Singapore exchange traded higher in the afternoon, up 0.8 per cent to $US113.40 a tonne on the November contract.

Source: AFR