Happy Friday!
How was your week?
It’s certainly been a volatile one on the boards.
But at least we have the weekend to look forward to!
PS – Melburnians, a cheeky end of week pic for you below….
Across Markets…
A weak lead from Wall Street and falls in the materials sector edged the sharemarket lower for its fourth straight day on Friday.
The S&P/ASX 200 closed 14.3 points, or 0.2 per cent lower at 7156.7. The All Ordinaries also fell 0.2 per cent. The benchmark fell 1.7 per cent over the last five days of trading.
Iron ore miners weighed heavy on the index on Friday. BHP fell 1.2 per cent, Fortescue Metals shed 2.4 per cent and Rio Tinto dropped 1.7 per cent.
The miners tracked falls in the iron ore price, with October futures in Singapore pricing the commodity at $US113.20 a tonne, down from a four-month high of $US117 a tonne earlier this week.
Mineral Resources also weighed the materials sector lower on Friday, dropping 3.8 per cent as it entered ex-dividend trading. The sector fell 1.1 per cent and was the only of the 11 sectors to chart more than a 1 per cent move in either direction.
In company news, shares in AMA Group tumbled 50 per cent after the listed smash repairer finished up a $55 million equity raising and resumed trading this morning. Shares in the offer were priced at 7.5¢, marking a 37.5 per cent discount to their previous trading levels.
Oil fell for a second day to all-but-eliminate a weekly gain that’s been driven by extended supply curbs from OPEC+ leaders Saudi Arabia and Russia and lower inventories, which saw prices hit the highest this year.
Unions have kicked off three weeks of strike action at Chevron’s LNG projects after last-minute talks broke down without a deal.