The Australian sharemarket had a lacklustre session on Tuesday and finished flat on the day as investors await further developments in US tariff negotiations with America’s major trading partners.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 1.2 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, to 8541.1 on Tuesday after tracking Wall Street higher earlier in the session. Seven out of the 11 sectors finished in the red, while the All Ordinaries was also largely unchanged.

Financial markets remain delicately poised as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that tariffs could “spring back to the April 2 levels” if trade deals aren’t reached by next week.

As the July 9 deadline approaches, Canada has halted its digital services tax to restart negotiations with Washington, and the European Union is reportedly willing to accept a 10 per cent universal tariff on many of its exports.

On the ASX, the local tech sector took a strong lead from Wall Street, where the Nasdaq closed at a record high. Xero rose 1.2 per cent to $182.03, Life360 climbed 4.4 per cent to $33.59, and Appen gained 3.6 per cent to $1.16.

And ahead of next week’s Reserve Bank board meeting, where markets are pricing in a good chance of a rate cut, the real estate sector was bid higher as investors took advantage of last week’s dip.

Scentre Group climbed 2.8 per cent to $3.66, GPT rose by 2.1 per cent to $4.94 and Stockland gained 1.7 per cent to $5.45.

On the other side of the ledger, profit-taking in index heavyweight Commonwealth Bank dragged the ASX 200 lower, with the shares falling 1.2 per cent to $182.58. The other major banks still climbed with ANZ up 2.5 per cent to $29.89 and National Australia Bank 0.9 per cent to $39.70.

Elsewhere, the iron ore majors slipped after iron ore futures fell 1 per cent to $US93.10 a tonne in Singapore. Rio Tinto lost 0.9 per cent to $106.12 and BHP slid 0.5 per cent to $36.57.

Stocks in focus

In corporate news, SGH dropped 2.9 per cent to $52.52, following news that Vik Bansal will step down as chief executive of its subsidiary Boral and transition to a role as non-executive director.

Insignia Financial jumped 5.2 per cent to $3.82 after CC Capital said it would continue to “actively work towards making a binding bid for the company” and would finalise financing and investment committee approvals in the next two weeks.

Biotech company Tetratherix rose another 12.3 per cent to $3.39 on Tuesday after climbing 4.9 per cent on its ASX debut on Monday. It’s the latest of a handful of initial public offerings this month.

David Di Pilla’s HMC Capital plunged 17.3 per cent to $4.22 after the firm abandoned its plan to build a $2 billion renewables generation and storage empire and has instead put its entire energy portfolio under review. The head of the fund, Angela Karl, had also quit.

Mesoblast shares jumped 11.2 per cent to $1.84 after the Australian biopharmaceutical company announced progress had been made on one of its treatments with the United States Food and Drug Administration.

And Medibank Private rose 2 per cent to $5.15 after Morgan Stanley upgraded its rating on the stock to overweight, the equivalent of a buy rating.

With Bloomberg

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