ASX rallies on tech; coal miners leap and Bega Cheese falls on FY23 warnings

Tech and resources pace broad ASX gains. Coal miners soar on China reports, Booktopia slips on CEO exit, Bega dives after FY23 warning and LNG exports break record.

Equity investors will look for slowdown cues as US inflation rises and Aus June jobs data indicates unemployment level changes. Picture: Gaye Gerard.

Welcome to the Trading Day blog for Thursday, July 14. The Australian sharemarket ends higher on a broad-based rally led by tech and energy sectors. It comes as the unemployment rates falls to 3.5 per cent in June and Booktopia removes Tony Nash as CEO.

The S&P/ASX 200 index closed 0.4 per cent higher to 6650.60, with all sectors bar real estate and financials in the green.

Unemployment data will be closely watched as fears of a slowdown grow and UBS warns too many rate hikes will ‘crash housing’.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7 per cent while the S&P 500 lost 0.5 per cent and the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite Index was 0.2 per cent lower.

Amid higher expectations of another big rate hike by the Federal Reserve, the yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note fell to 2.92 per cent. The two-year yield is higher at 3.15 per cent. 

In corporate updates, data scientists weigh into Twitter and Elon Musk’s legal battle over number of fake accounts and Microsoft to support Netflix’s subscription growth.

Oil prices stabilised with the global benchmark Brent up 0.1 per cent to $US99.57 a barrel while the US Nymex crude added 0.5 per cent to $US96.30 a barrel.

Iron ore futures price is 1.9 per cent higher at $US110.26 per tonne.

The Aussie dollar is flat at US67.55c near the US close.