ASX hits fresh record as banks rise; AMP and Star Entertainment soar

Welcome to your five-minute recap of the trading day.

The numbers

The Australian sharemarket set a fresh record on Thursday, pushed higher by financial stocks and real estate investment trusts, after a positive lead from Wall Street.

The S&P/ASX 200 closed up 71.20 points, or 0.9 per cent, at 8355.90, with nine of the 11 industry sectors advancing, even as it pared some early gains following the release of the latest jobs data, which dampened optimism for interest rates cuts before the end of the year.

The ASX is higher across the board.Credit: Getty Images

Mining companies and IT stocks were the only sectors in the red amid jitters about the extent of China’s expected stimulus program and ongoing concerns that the AI frenzy that has driven recent gains may have been overdone.

The lifters

The session’s top performers were financial services giant AMP, gambling concern Star Entertainment Group and uranium miner Paladin Energy.

AMP shares shot up 17.7 per cent after the asset manager said cashflows from its wealth platform jumped 76 per cent in the September quarter to $750 million.

The news that Star Entertainment Group would be allowed to keep operating its Sydney casino sent its shares 13.7 per cent higher. The company will pay a $15 million fine to the NSW casino regulator for breaches of compliance, but chief commissioner of the NSW Independent Casino Commission Philip Crawford said cancelling Star’s licence would have been a “very final act”, noting the economic implications of the closure in NSW and Queensland.

Uranium miner Paladin Energy jumped 11 per cent amid reports that US tech giants are increasingly looking to nuclear power plants to provide the emissions-free electricity needed to run artificial intelligence and other businesses. Microsoft, Google and Amazon have recently struck deals with operators and developers of nuclear power plants to fuel the boom in data centres.

The big four banks all gained, rising between 1.3 per cent and 2.1 per cent after strong earnings from their counterparts on Wall Street this week. After Goldman Sachs’ profit surprise earlier this week, Morgan Stanley posted better-than-expected revenue overnight, fuelling a 32 per cent profit surge for the third quarter and sending its shares up the most in almost four years.

The laggards

Healthcare company Healius was the worst performer on the index, down 4.5 per cent. Other laggards were mining company Mineral Resources (down 3.8 per cent) and investment management company Challenger (down 4 per cent).

Mining heavyweight BHP lost 1.3 per cent after reporting the price it got for its iron ore has fallen over the last year, although its production of copper and iron ore edged up over the quarter.

Rival iron ore miners Rio Tinto and Fortescue also declined, falling 1.8 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively as the metal’s price tumbled to a three-week low, a sign that investors doubt whether China’s latest moves to shore up the property market will do enough to boost construction activity and steel demand.

The lowdown

While the market overall was in a bullish mood, investors took the jobs figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as further evidence that the nation’s economy is still riding strong, making it unlikely that the Reserve Bank will deliver an interest rate cut before the end of the year.

The ABS data showed the jobs market has continued to surge, with the unemployment rate steady at 4.1 per cent in September and a record 10 million Australians in full-time employment.

“It’s hard to see the RBA doing anything other than considering raising interest rates further in the near term if inflation doesn’t moderate,” said Ivan Colhoun, consulting chief economist at CreditorWatch. “As today’s data suggests, the bank is over-achieving on its full-employment mandate, while the jury is still out on its ability to deliver inflation back to target in a reasonable timeframe.”

Colhoun said that even if inflation moderated in the third quarter, the RBA wouldn’t cut rates in the near term as “the strength in this data means it does not have to – it can take heart from the strength in the employment data to wait for further confirmation that inflation is indeed moderating back to target”.

Tweet of the day

Quote of the day

“I realise that my workload is too high. I acknowledge that, and I am in the process of dealing with it. But you can’t just walk out on commitments that you have just to ... go off and do something else. You have to do it in a proper, professional planned way, which is what I’m doing.” That’s serial chairman John Mullen giving his strongest indication yet that he will step away from some of his board commitments. Mullen chairs Qantas, Treasury Wine Estates and Brambles as well as PwC spin-off Scyne Advisory and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

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