ASX closes in on record high during Friday’s trading

The Australian sharemarket traded strongly on Friday off the back of further rate cuts from the US central bank.

The Australian sharemarket closed near a record high during Friday’s trading as sentiment improved off the back of the US Federal Reserve cutting interest rates.

The benchmark ASX 200 index gained by 68.80 points, or 0.84 per cent, to finish the session at 8,295.10 points.

The broader All Ordinaries rose by 71 points, or 0.84 per cent, to close at 8,552.60 points.

The Australian dollar fell by 0.4 per cent at 67 US cents.

During Thursday night’s trading session in the US, the broad market S&P 500 rose 0.7 per cent to close at a new record. The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 1.5 per cent and ended the session above 19,000 for the first time. Meanwhile, the 30-stock Dow Jones traded marginally lower.

AMP head of investment strategy and chief economist Shane Oliver said the Australian markets were trading higher following improving sentiment off the back of the US trading.

The ASX traded higher on Friday, with 10 of the 11 sectors up. Picture: NewsWire / Max Mason-Hubers

“You can understand why the market went up. It is the signal from US stocks rallying off the back of (Fed chair Jerome) Powell and further interest rate cuts,” Mr Oliver said.

“It helps sentiment wise, if there is nothing else happening we take a lead out of what is happening in the US,” he said

“CBA contributed to most of the gain and IT’s gain followed US tech stocks with profits over there coming in strongly.”

The rise on the ASX was broad based with 10 out of the 11 sectors trading higher on Friday.

The information technology sector was the largest gainer by percentage, up 1.86 per cent, but it was financials (up 0.80 per cent) that did the heavy lifting for the ASX due to the size of the stocks on the index.

Westpac traded up 2 per cent to $32.14, while the Commonwealth Bank continued trading at a record high up 1.40 per cent to $149.32. ANZ rose 1.32 per cent to $32.13 after releasing its full year results while NAB was the weakest on Friday of the big four, trading up 0.81 per cent to $39.65.

Moomoo’s market analyst Jessica Amir said the market moved within 1 per cent of a record high off the Federal Reserve cutting rates as well as China looking to stimulate the economy.

Federal Reserve cuts and Chinese stimulus packages helped commodity shares on the ASX. Picture: NewsWire / Max Mason-Hubers

“The Chinese economy is signalling they are going to stimulate their economy more. Gold stocks are up 4 per cent, while uranium stocks have turned a corner and have a bullish set up as their biggest clients are US tech stocks,” she said.

Capricorn Metals was one of these benefactors up 4.88 per cent to $6.23 with the gold metal miner moving up on the underlying gold price.

“Stocks usually rally for six months after a Fed rate cut and would be expecting a bullish runway for 2025, although it will be a bumpy one,” Ms Amir said.

Originally published as ASX closes in on record high during Friday’s trading