ASX 200 lifts; MinRes soars on meeting guidance; Outage hits Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG plant; US GDP beats estimates

Investors welcome MinRes cash gains, price wins. Bellevue Gold downgraded on discounted equity raise. Inflation uptick may force RBA hike. Key exit triggers Cochlear executive rehaul.

Global and local quarterly updates have made for a rollercoaster week for investors. Picture: Gaye Gerard

Welcome to the Trading Day blog for Friday, July 26. The ASX 200 index closed 0.8 per cent higher to 7921.30 points. It came after a mixed US session where Tesla was the only Magnificent Seven stock to end in the green. 

The Aussie dollar is trading around US65.54c at 5pm AEST.

Updates

4:54 pm July 26, 2024

ASX 200 ends up 0.8pc as US futures soar

David Rogers

Australia's share market rebounds strongly as US futures soar.

The S&P/ASX 200 index ends up 0.8 per cent at 7921.3 after rising to 7938.3.

The biggest rise in two weeks comes as S&P 500 futures jump 0.5 per cent with Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.7 per cent. The ASX 200 dived 1.3 per cent to a two-week low of 7861.2 in its worst day in six weeks amid risk aversion in global markets.

The index falls 0.6 per cent for the week, its first weekly fall in four.

Friday's rise sees the materials and property sectors lead broad-based gains.

Rio Tinto leads a 2.8-1 per cent rise in iron ore miners as the commodity rebounds almost four per cent after hitting six week lows near $US99 a tonne Thursday.

Pilbara Minerals leads a 2.9-3.8 per cent rise in lithium majors.

Gold miners fall with the commodity down and Bellevue Gold down 21 per cent after completing a $150m equity capital raise.

ANZ falls 0.6 per cent amid the AoFM scandal but Westpac adds 0.9 per cent.

Macquarie rebounds 1.5 per cent and QBE Insurance jumps 2.5 per cent.

3:29 pm July 26, 2024

NT govt kills Jabiluka prospects

Nick Evans

The Northern Territory government has killed off any hope of an extension of mining at ERA’s Northern Territory uranium mine, refusing to extend the mining lease covering the rich Jabiluka deposit.

ERA, majority owned by Rio Tinto, finished mining at its Ranger deposit some time ago and a multibillion dollar clean-up operation is now underway.

Rio has long said it would not support the move to open up the Jabiluka deposits for mining in the face of opposition from the Mirrar people, the traditional owners of the area. But, a small group of holdout shareholders — led by fund managers Willy Packer and Singaporean businessman Richard Magides — have been pushing for the company to find a way to exploit the high grade uranium deposit.

But, NT mining minister Mark Monaghan said on Friday he had rejected the application, based on advice from the federal government. "The Federal Government advice, along with the wishes of the Mirarr people, were critical to this process and outcome," he said.

In March the NT government slapped a "reserved land" notice over the lease area, which prevents other would-be uranium mine developers from pegging the lease area after ERA’s licence expires.

1:48 pm July 26, 2024

Glencore backs ASX minnow's Nifty plans

Valerina Changarathil

Swiss giant Glencore's backing will see ASX-listed micro-cap Cyprium Metals accelerate plans for a new surface copper mine at its Nifty project in WA in a deal being described as a "win for both WA mining jobs and for Queensland processing jobs".

A commercial strategic partnership is now in place that will see Cyprium sell cathode products to o Glencore on commercial terms for a fixed term initially. Copper products from Nifty's two processing plants will be purchased by Glencore, including off-spec materials. The contract "adds resilience" to restart cathode production at Glencore’s refinery in Townsville, Queensland.

Cyprium also has a contract to supply copper concentrate to Glencore from 2026, the earliest likely date that Nifty might start production. Other aspects of the commercial partnership include an option for Cyprium to purchase sulphuric acid to eliminate uncertainty in supply, technical support from Glencore Technology and a $20m working capital facility that would allow for the effective purchase point of cathodes to move from Port Hedland to the Nifty mine site.

All arrangements are subject to conditions, including due diligence, binding agreements and a final investment decision on Nifty's Cathode Restart.

1:30 pm July 26, 2024 Highlight

Inflation uptick may force RBA hike

Valerina Changarathil

Bets are growing next week's June quarter inflation number, due on Wednesday, July 31, will be strong enough for the Reserve Bank of Australia to lift the cash rate at its August meeting.

Commonwealth Bank economists expect headline consumer price inflation (CPI) rose by 1 per cent in the June quarter and 3.7 per cent on a year ago basis. Trimmed mean CPI likely lifted 0.9 per cent during the quarter and 3.9 per cent on an annual basis, "which could be enough for the Reserve Bank to hike rates".

The official cash rate currently sits at 4.35 per cent and some economists see a risk of a 25 basis points hike to 4.6 per cent.

Economists at UBS are forecasting headline CPI lifted 1.1 per cent quarter on quarter, seeing the year on year number rise to 3.9 per cent, which would be a "tick above the RBA's 3.8 per cent (and a stale consensus at ~3.6 per cent)".

This would mark 13 consecutive quarters of y/y CPI above the RBA's 2-3 per cent target. "UBS has a non-consensus view the RBA hike 25bps (basis points) in Aug-24; subject to CPI in Q2-24 above RBA forecasts," the note by George Tharenou states.

1:07 pm July 26, 2024

Don't sell yet, Dynamic tells investors

Valerina Changarathil

Drilling services small-cap Dynamic Group is urging shareholders to take no action in relation to a left-field 28c per share takeover bid from Australian Food Super.

The bidder is a 19.9 per cent stakeholder in Dynamic, and says its $38.9m offer is in line with its strategy to deploy capital to maximise members' long term returns. Shares in Dynamic (DDB) are up 21 per cent to 28.5c at 1pm AEST.

"Dynamic Group shareholders who sell on market now will not be able to participate in any higher offer that may emerge," the group told its investors, advising them to wait until a formal recommendation is made. "AFS has not declared the Offer to be "best and final".

Sternship Advisers and Hamilton Locke have been appointed to advise Dynamic Group on the offer, which will be open at least until September 9.

12:50 pm July 26, 2024

Call for 'stronger action' against CFMEU

Noah Yim

Independent member Allegra Spender says the Albanese government needs to take “stronger action than they’ve currently outlined” following damning revelations about the CFMEU and has backed the creation of an industry-specific regulator.

She said that Labor needs to cease donations from the CFMEU indefinitely and that the Australian Building and Construction Commission – which was scrapped by the Albanese government – made the industry better but “it wasn’t good enough”.

“My message to the government is they need to take stronger action than they’ve currently outlined and it needs to be both the short term – but also, we need to fix this,” Ms Spender told Sky News. “Because we’ve had how many royal commissions around this issue? And once again, Australia is still in the situation where we have criminal behaviour, we have a waste of public money, and we have corruption that we should not expect in the building industry and so I think this up to saying the political football that the construction industry has been, and the political infighting between the major parties has got us absolutely nowhere.


“It’s up to Labor to lead on this but there's going to be a very strong push on the crossbench to take stronger action and I’m going to be pushing to say: look, it’s time for the major parties to grow up, to get together, and say how collectively are we going to fix this rather than use it as a point scoring exercise against each other?


“Myself and others across the crossbench are writing to the PM about this idea of saying we need some short term action and we also need a long term legislative and oversight body that actually sticks, and that actually can provide the significant governance that we need."

12:38 pm July 26, 2024

OpenAI's SearchGPT to challenge Google

OpenAI is launching a test version of its long-awaited search engine, which it says will cite sources of information, including news from business partners such as The Australian and The Wall Street Journal publisher News Corp and the Atlantic magazine.

The tool, called SearchGPT, will summarise the information found on websites, including news sites, and let users ask follow-up questions, just as they can currently with OpenAI’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT. The sources are linked at the end of each answer in parentheses.

OpenAI also built a sidebar where it said users can see more results and sources with relevant information.

SearchGPT is OpenAI’s most direct challenge yet to Google’s dominance in search since the release of ChatGPT in 2022 caught the tech company flat-footed.

Google this year widely rolled out its own AI search feature that synthesises information from multiple web sources.

– The Wall Street Journal

12:03 pm July 26, 2024

ASX 200 up 0.9pc as S&P 500 futures rise

David Rogers

Australia's share market having its best day in two weeks as a solid lift in US futures points to a rebound on Wall Street on Friday.

The S&P/ASX 200 rises 0.9 per cent to an intraday high of 7931.8 after diving 1.3 per cent to a two-week low of 7861.2 on Thursday, its worst day in six weeks.

S&P 500 futures are up 0.5 per cent with Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.6 per cent.

The materials, energy and property sectors are outperforming.

Rio Tinto leads a 2.4-3.1 per cent rise in iron ore miners after Singapore iron ore futures bounced about 3 per cent from four-month lows near $US99 on Thursday.

MinRes leads lithium miners with a 6.7 per cent rise after its production report.

Santos is up 1.7 per cent and Mirvac jumps 3 per cent.

11:08 am July 26, 2024

Miners going well: best performers

Joseph Carbone

The Material sector is enjoying the best start on the ASX Friday, up 1.4 per cent.

Mineral Resources is up 5.1 per cent to $54.51 per share after good production and cash results, BHP is 2 per cent higher to $42.02 per share.

Andrew Forrest's Fortescue is 2.7 per cent higher after some rough weeks to $20.68 per share. Rio Tinto is up 2.5 per cent to $115.59 per share.

Of the few large-caps with lower share prices, Northern Star shares have lost 3 per cent to $13.86 per share and Newmont is 3.1 per cent lower to $70.09 per share.

11:00 am July 26, 2024

Key exit triggers Cochlear executive rehaul

Valerina Changarathil

The decision by healthcare giant Cochlear's key executive team member Richard Brook to step down at the end of December after more than 20 years has triggered an internal overhaul.

Mr Brook has been president, Europe and Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for two decades, overseeing a period of substantial growth, including an eight-fold increase in revenue.

Current Asia Pacific and Latin America president Anthony Bishop will move to the EMEA position in January. Mr Bishop's position will be taken by Stu Sayers, Cochlear's current chief financial officer at the same time.

A search for a new CFO is now underway. Shares in Cochlear are up 1 per cent near $340.02 at 11am AEST.