The laggards

Meanwhile, miners (down 1 per cent) were weaker with Mineral Resources (down 3.8 per cent), Pilbara Minerals (down 2.5 per cent) and IGO (down 1.7 per cent) among the biggest large-cap decliners.

Iron ore heavyweights Rio Tinto (down 1.7 per cent) and Fortescue (down 2.4 per cent) dragged down the local bourse after the iron ore price slid 2.1 per cent overnight.

Consumer discretionary companies (down 0.8) also weighed the local bourse as Wesfarmers (down 0.7 per cent), Aristocrat (down 1.5 per cent) and Lottery Corporation (down 1.2 per cent) slipped lower.

The lowdown

Shaw and Partners senior advisor Craig Sidney said the Australian sharemarket was relatively weak across the board, but particularly in the resources sector as major companies went ex-dividend.

“BHP went ex-dividend yesterday, and although iron ore has been holding up relatively well, there’s been a bit of concern around China and potential US interest rate increases,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said insurers and healthcare companies were stronger ahead of CSL going ex-dividend on Monday.

“Insurers like QBE and IAG were stronger,” Sidney said. “Insurers tend to do better in rising interest rate environments because of their investment income. But it probably more reflects money moving out of other sectors such as resources.”

Elsewhere, Wall Street slipped in mixed trading as the threat of high interest rates continues to dog Big Tech stocks.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3 per cent, the Nasdaq composite was hit particularly hard by the drop in tech stocks, and it sank 0.9 per cent. The Dow Jones held up better than the rest of the market because it has less of an emphasis on tech, and it rose 0.2 per cent.

Stocks felt pressure from the bond market, where yields rose earlier in the week after a report showed stronger growth for US services industries last month than economists expected. Yields remained high after a report on Thursday said fewer US workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than expected.

While such reports are encouraging for the economy, indicating a long-predicted recession is not near, they could also keep conditions humming strongly enough to push inflation upwards.

Apple is the dominant force on Wall Street because it’s the most valuable stock, and it fell 2.9 per cent to follow up on its 3.6 per cent drop a day before.

Nvidia sank 1.7 per cent to bring its loss for the week so far to 4.7 per cent. It and a cohort of other stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry have soared this year on expectations that AI could mean explosive future growth in profits.

Tweet of the day

Quote of the day

“We need to be extremely careful with any policy changes that could potentially drive price increases or result in added complexity for businesses – many of whom already struggle to comprehend the existing regulatory framework,” said Australian Retail Association boss Paul Zahra about the federal government’s proposed changes to the Fair Work Act.

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With AP

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