Aristocrat Leisure (up 12.3 per cent) was among the best performers after the company reported an almost 17 per cent rise in profit to $723.3 million for the six months ended March 31, plus an increased dividend to shareholders.

Incitec Pivot shares lifted 2.5 per cent after the firm flagged plans to sell its fertiliser business to Indonesian group, Pupuk Kalimantan Timur.

The laggards

Energy (down 0.3 per cent) was the only losing sector after the International Energy Agency overnight forecast slower demand globally for oil. Santos shares dipped 0.5 per cent and Whitehaven Coal fell 1.5 per cent to weigh heavily on the sector.

Amcor shares fell 1 per cent, Aurizon Holdings was down 0.8 per cent and Computershare declined 0.8 per cent. However, in a sign of major strength in the sharemarket, only nine large-cap stocks went backwards.

The lowdown

BetaShares chief economist David Bassanese said the positive US inflation figure and the local unemployment data sparked further hopes central banks would not lift their key interest rates.

Loading

“[The unemployment data] tells us the economy is slowly losing the ability to absorb the influx of new labour supply, so the market is gradually softening, which is what the RBA is counting on,” he said. “The core CPI [in the US] was in line with expectations, still higher than we’d like… but for the first time in months, at least it wasn’t higher than expected.”

Overnight on Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 Index surged 1.2 per cent to top its record high set in March.

The Nasdaq Composite Index did even better, gaining 1.4 per cent to extend its record set a day earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also gained 0.9 per cent to beat its high set in March.

US Treasury yields fell, making stocks more attractive, after the economic report showed US inflation fell in April, compared with a month earlier.

The prices US consumers had to pay for petrol, car insurance and other goods and services were 3.4 per cent higher than the same period a year earlier. While still painful, it is not as bad as March’s inflation rate of 3.5 per cent.

Perhaps more importantly, the slowdown was a relief after reports for the consumer price index earlier this year had consistently been worse than expected.

The moves strengthened market expectations that the Federal Reserve may indeed cut its main interest rate this year.

Tweet of the day

Quote of the day

“Being on the pool deck at the national championships, it was definitely the talk of the swimming pool and everyone throwing their support behind our patron [Gina Rinehart] that makes everything possible for us,” said Rio Olympic gold medallist Kyle Chalmers, who led the charge against the National Gallery hanging an unflattering portrait of mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.

“I think she just deserves to be praised and looked upon definitely a lot better than what the portraits have made her out to be. Without her sponsorship, we would actually have nothing.”

You may have missed

Chemist Warehouse will lose its ability to give its customers $1 off their medicines, under an Albanese government policy to appease the influential Pharmacy Guild in tense negotiations over the next five years of pharmacy funding.

AP

The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.