PEAK ASSET: ARVO WRAP 17 OCTOBER: Tech rally pushes ASX higher | RBA minutes show November meeting ‘clearly live’ | Spenda signs 10yr e-commerce payments deal with Capricorn Society |

Clear blue skies in Melbourne today and we are set for a warmer week ahead.

Did you know…

Biotech is one the highest performing sectors on the ASX over the last 10 years?

Not all about spodumene, it seems.

We’ve seen some strong performance in our portfolio companies, such as NEU DXB PAR and others.

Which ones do you like?

Across Markets…

A rally in tech stocks helped the Australian sharemarket shrug off some unexpectedly hawkish commentary from the Reserve Bank of Australia and snap a two-session losing streak on Monday.

The S&P/ASX 200 closed 29.6 points, or 0.4 per cent, higher to 7056.1, bouncing after two sessions of moderate declines. The All Ordinaries posted similar gains. The benchmark index had reached above 1 per cent higher by 11:30am but retreated slightly following the release of the minutes from the RBA’s monetary policy meeting earlier this month. 

The minutes showed that central bank members had considered raising rates 25 basis points before deciding to hold the rate at 4.1 per cent for a fourth time. 
ANZ’s head of Australian economics Adam Boyton highlighted the new statement as evidence the minutes were more hawkish than previous sets.

National Australia Bank, which expects the central bank to raise rates to 4.35 per cent in November, also drew attention to the new statement, saying the November meeting was “clearly live”.

“Given the RBA’s ‘low tolerance’ for a slower return of inflation to target, if the RBA does deliver a hike in November as we expect, we think the RBA would still retain a tightening bias,” said NAB’s head of markets Tapas Strickland.

Following the statement, consumer-facing stocks fell. Harvey Norman dipped 2.4 per cent to $3.68, Myer dropped 2.9 per cent to 51¢ and JB Hi-Fi lost 1.2 per cent to $45.91.

Healthcare stocks were the worst performing on the benchmark, weighed by a 1.5 per cent decline in CSL to $236.40. Shares in the biotech are now down more than 7 per cent over the last five sessions, following concerns its kidney disease business could be at risk from GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic.

The tech sector was the best performing, up 1.3 per cent, mirroring a strong 1.9 per cent gain on the tech-heavy Nasdaq, overnight.

In company news, Bapcor sank 11.5 per cent to $5.91, after flagging that its year-to-date revenue growth had slowed to a low-single digit percentage rate, compared with last year. The company also said its year-to-date net profit after tax was “behind expectations”.

Source: AFR