ASX 200 up 1.2pc; Crown's $8.9bn sale gets investor nod; The Lottery Corp on ASX next week; housing downturn here

Australia's share market bucks overnight falls as US and European index futures soared and Asian shares rose.  Westpac says housing downturn is here. Shareholder give nod for Crown's $8.9bn sale to Blackstone. Woolworths goes for Mydeal. Cannon-Brookes reveals AGL vision.

Wall Street extended its declines overnight after a volatile session. Picture: Christian Gilles / NCA NewsWire

Welcome to the Trading Day blog for Friday, May 20. ASX 200 closed up 1.2 per cent at 7145.6 points after rising to 7154.6. 

Chalice Mining leds the gains in the top 200 after winning regulatory approval for exploratory drilling at the Hartog-Dampier targets within its Julimar project in WA.

The IT, Materials and Consumer Discretionary sectors outperformed. Drivers of those groups were Block (+9.9) and Computer (+3.1), BHP (+2.1) and Fortescue (+3.9) and Aristocrat (+4.2 per cent) and Wesfarmers (+1.9) per cent. Top three gainers were Chalice Mining (+19) on Julimar drilling approval, Life360 (+12) and Novonix (+12) per cent.

The worst three were Nufarm (-4.1) , Woodside (-3.8) on its pending share issue to BHP shareholders, and Orica (-3) per cent.

The rise came as bargain hunters stepped in after $40bn was erased from the benchmark on Thursday.

In the US, stocks wobbled amid continued concern about the strength of the world’s largest economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.7 per cent, the S&P 500 slid 0.5 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 0.2 per cent. That’s after heavy selling in the previous session triggered by a profit warning from a retail giant, Target.

Among commodities, US Nymex crude oil added 1.9 per cent to $US111.64 a barrel  as China officials planned to ease Covid restrictions in Shanghai, tightening global supply. Iron ore added 0.9 per cent to $US131.03 a tonne.

And the Aussie dollar firmed overnight to trade near US70.45c  at the US close.