The laggards

Boss Energy shares shed 10.9 per cent of their value after the company revealed that chief executive Duncan Craib, chair Wyatt Buck and director Bryn Jones had sold more than $26 million worth of their shareholdings in the company.

Shares in healthcare provider Healius shares fell 5 per cent following unconfirmed reports that private equity firms are believed to have shown interest in purchasing its diagnostic imaging unit.

The lowdown

The consumer discretionary sector fell 0.7 per cent after fresh data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the impact cost-of-living pressures are having on consumer spending: retail sales in April ticked up by just 0.1 per cent from March. Economists had been forecasting a rise of 0.2 per cent.

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“Australian consumers remain extremely despondent,” said CreditorWatch chief economist Anneke Thompson. “Although Treasury forecasts that income-tax cuts and cost-of-living measures announced in the budget will assist in a recovery in real disposable income over the 2024-25 financial year, it remains to be seen if this will flow on to increased spending in the retail sector.”

Commenting on the same data, AMP deputy chief economist Diana Mousina said the weakness in retail sales showed no signs of abating.

“Our view is that inflation will continue to slow through the remainder of the year, despite some upside risks from the upcoming Fair Work Commission wage decisions, and lift in some commodity prices,” Mousina wrote in a research note to clients.

“The lower inflation backdrop, soft economic growth and higher unemployment rate should allow the Reserve Bank to start cutting interest rates by the end of the year. The poor retail data indicates that the RBA should not be discussing the need for another rate hike at its next meeting in June, as higher interest rates are clearly working to slow demand.”

Overnight, in the absence of US and UK sharemarkets, European shares edged higher in thin trading after a European Central Bank (ECB) official signalled policymakers could consider successive cuts to interest rates, starting next month.

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Carmakers and utilities led a modest advance in the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. Turnover was less than half the 20-day average.

US equity futures advanced and a gauge of the US dollar dipped.

ECB governing council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the bank should not rule out lowering borrowing costs at both its June and July meetings, in a pushback against fellow monetary officials who are uncomfortable at the idea of consecutive cuts.

ECB chief economist Philip Lane said earlier that the central bank would have to keep policy restrictive through 2024, even after cutting interest rates next month.

Tweet of the day

Quote of the day

“In my experience, [the relatively few] companies that have openly acknowledged and taken action against sexually inappropriate behaviour or bullying have been given credit for their candour.”

That’s our columnist Elizabeth Knight, who writes about the strange experience of seeing Nine, the publisher of this masthead, become its own headline as it joins an ignominious list of companies embroiled in a workplace sexual harassment and bullying scandal.

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When Wall Street reopens after Monday’s Memorial Day holiday, trading will resume as usual. Yet when it comes to settling those trades, the process will be anything but normal.

The US, along with Canada, Mexico and Argentina, is halving the time allowed to settle trades in its stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds and mutual funds from two days to one day. Or, in the jargon of market participants and their regulators, from T+2 to T+1. However, this change could lead to mismatches between the US and other markets, most of which – including the ASX – operate within T+2 settlement regimes.

With Bloomberg