Good Afternoon and welcome to this Tuesday edition of Market Close, I’m Jon Davidson. Intraday trades looked healthier in the final half hour with the XJO tracking above 8,600 points, a sign that tariff fatigue is truly setting in.
IT led the sectors heading to close, with Life360 popping 7% and Wisetech, NextDC and Xero all notching gains.
Materials led the laggards, even as Chinese GDP came in slightly better than expected for Q2 – suggesting perhaps a resilient lack of confidence in the country’s property sector.
Let’s turn to stocks in the green.
Family safety app Life360, or family tracking app depending on how you look at it, saw shares were up over 8% in the final half hour of trades as its dual listing on the NASDAQ popped overnight; investors can expect to see more US-oriented price action in the weeks ahead as earnings season has descended upon Wall Street.
Elsewhere, another day, another defence stock!- or at least, those stocks defence-adjacent. This time it was ASX-listed Israeli-based company Elsight, who are working on tech that allows the uninterrupted remote operation of drones, kind of like the Yang to Droneshield’s Ying.
Finally, Silver Mines Limited was comfortably green in the final half hour as prices for that metal hit 14 year highs this week, ultimately tracking the gold price as investors rotate into a precious metal with more room to run.
And so what about the reds?
Eftpos machine distributor Tyro Payments was firmly red in the final half hour after the RBA today released a consultation paper proposing to scrap surcharge fees for eftpos payments nation-wide. While this has led to division, the RBA appeared to be eyeing the macroeconomic decline of cash in the 21st Century as a motivator.
Elsewhere, Pilbara Minerals was in the red heading into close even after lithium carbonate benchmarks jumped this week, underscoring a 6% climb on commodity futures markets is hardly enough to revive enthusiasm for the EV metal. That’s because there’s simply too much of it.
Finally, Bowen Coking coal was firmly in the red approaching close after tanking on Tuesday then quickly suspending its shares, after it revealed a demand for $15M from a second party that has left Bowen second-guessing whether it can even viably raise more cash. If you wanted a signal the COVID coal revival is over, that could be a good one.
That’s Market Close, I’m Jon Davidson, have a great Tuesday night and we’ll see you tomorrow.