Australian shares edged lower on Thursday as investors took profits from technology stocks and bought back into beaten-up lithium miners ahead of the end of the financial year.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 fell 8.4 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 8550.8, with seven out of 11 sectors in the red. The broader All Ordinaries index shed 6.3 points to 8773.6.

ASX software giant Xero dropped 5.3 per cent to $184 as the company completed a $1.85 billion capital raising to buy US accounting and invoicing platform Melio Payments. Fellow popular tech stocks Life360 and TechnologyOne shed 1.8 per cent and 1.1 per cent to $30.84 and $39.98 respectively.

“The ASX was unusually quiet,” Ten Cap portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu told The Australian Financial Review. “Any movement was basically driven by portfolio managers essentially closing the books for the financial year – taking profits from tech and buying back losers, like resources, with some heavily shorted lithium names also getting a bounce.”

The lithium sector was further buoyed by news that Vanguard became a substantial shareholder of PLS (formerly Pilbara Minerals), sending its share price 5.6 per cent higher to $1.32. Positive sentiment spread to other producers of the battery material, with Mineral Resources up 3.6 per cent to $20.90, Liontown Resources climbing 2.9 per cent to 70¢, and IGO rising 1.8 per cent to $4.01.

Gold edged higher to $US333.98 an ounce as the US dollar dipped and traders weighed a truce in the Middle East. Still, miners of the precious metal were mostly lower, with Northern Star down 2.3 per cent to $18.84 and Regis Resources dropping 1.5 per cent to $4.49.

Copper also extended gains for a fifth session after Goldman Sachs said it expected the price to rise to a 2025 peak of around $US10,050 a tonne in August as supplies outside the US tighten.

Commonwealth Bank eased 0.4 per cent to $190.71 after hitting a fresh record of $192 on Wednesday, while National Australia Bank fell by a similar amount to $39.89, but Westpac edged higher to $34.57.

Stocks in focus

ANZ advanced 2.2 per cent to $29.74 following news that technology boss Gerard Florian will depart the bank just a week after retail head Maile Carnegie said she would leave.

Rail freight group Aurizon dipped 0.3 per cent to $2.99 after the company announced that its underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for FY25 is expected to be $1.58 billion, missing expectations and down from $1.6 billion the year before.

DroneShield rose another 11.7 per cent to $2.39 after gaining almost 20 per cent in the previous session when the defence technology company announced a $61.6 million European military deal.

Humm Group also extended its rally, gaining 3.7 per cent to 56¢ after the buy now, pay later company confirmed a takeover offer from the family office of chairman Andrew Abercrombie.

And Neuren Pharmaceuticals jumped 6.1 per cent to $13.31 after the business announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office had accepted its patent application for a treatment of Pitt Hopkins syndrome.

That’s a wrap on today’s news. Join us again soon for more live markets news.