Good morning traders. Thanks @ttward, @Ravgnome & the aftermarket loungers. Special early edition today. Well, by special I really mean shorter. Europa League final just kicking off, also tonight the cricket world cup begins over in England.
ASX Market Report
Comments from Donald Trump gave fresh doubt over a resolution to the United States’ trade dispute with China, as well as some negative looking futures, led the ASX 200 had its worst day for a couple of weeks. The ASX 200 fell 44.8 points or 0.69% to 6440 points.
The only sector to close in the green was the Telcos, with market heavyweight Telstra (TLS) rising 0.28% enough to cancel out loses from others at and netting a 0.1% gain for the sector.
The big mover on the benchmark index on Wednesday was Lynas Corporation (LYC) after reports that Beijing is gearing up to use its dominance of rare earths as a counter in its trade battle with Washington. Other companies involved in rare earth also say the stock prices rise substantially. Alkane Resources (ALK) was up 12.28% to 32c, Arafura Resources (ARU) rose 22.86% to 8.6c, Greenland Minerals (GGG) was up 18.18% to 13c, and Peak Resources climbed 20.15% to 4.7c.
Otherwise it was a disappointing day across the board, Industrials the worst performer losing 1.41%. Downer EDI (DOW) fell sharply after it had revealed problems with its partner for the Murra Warra Wind farm near Horsham.Its German partner Senvion filed self-administration proceedings in Germany on 9 April. On 17 April debtors and bond holders signed a debtor-in-possession facility worth 100 million euros. "Downer will be assessing whether there is any potential financial impact on Downer and consequently any impact on its guidance for the 2019 financial year. Downer will keep the market updated". Credit Suisse analyst Paul Butler also downgraded the stock to 'underperform' from 'neutral’. Downers shares where last trading at $7.16, down 9.14%.
The big four banks were a genuinely mixed bag, with NAB rising 0.99%, ANZ up 0.14%, Commonwealth Bank (CBA) falling 0.19%, and Westpac Banking (WBC) down 0.47%.
Heavyweight miner BHP and Rio Tinto saw slight loses after 3 successive days of gain for both, BHP closed at $38.36 down 0.62%, and Rio Tinto finished the day at $104.53, down 0.74% on Tuesdays close.
At the small cap end of the market was where most of the fun was to be had though, with Brainchip Holdings (BRN) intra-day movement resembling a good old fashioned pump and dump after it jumped as much as 138.46% to 10.5c, before closing well off the pace up 38.64% for the day at 6.1c. But they weren’t the only ones in the sector to see that action, Neurotech International (NTI) was up as much as 127.27% before closing up a paltry 18.18%.
Olivers Real Food (OLI) were another to see a massive spike in price and volume, although the retrace was not quite as spectacular as the two mentioned above, up 90.91% at it’s peak of 4.2c before closing at 3.2c, still holding a decent portion of the gains sitting up 54.55% on the previous days close.
Global Markets Report
US markets continued their slide following more concerns over potential slowing growth in the face of an extended trade war. At the time of writing, the Dow was down 351.21 points or 1.39% to 24,996.56, the S&P 500 down 31.01 points or 1.11% to 2,711.38, and the Nasdaq had fallen 87.23 points or 1.15% to 7,520.12. The pan-European Stoxx 600 fell 1.46%, with the French CAC 40 the worst of the major European indices, falling 1.7%.
In Asia it had been a bit of a mixed bag, as the Shanghai Composite had managed to buck the trend and close up 0.16% in the green. The rest of Asia had struggled though, Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.22%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.57%, and Korea’s Kospi fell 1.25%.
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Here’s one for PB or any other fellow bacon fanatics, it’s a…. “bacon weave breakfast burrito”. Simply looking at this picture is enough to require you to get a health checkup at the doctor's. You’ve been warned.
