FX.co ★ Australian Market Slightly Higher

On Wednesday, Australian shares witnessed a slight upward trend, breaking a four-day decline. This comes on the heels of mixed signals from Wall Street on Tuesday. Gold miners, financial, and energy stocks saw gains balancing out losses from iron ore miners, thereby keeping the S&P/ASX 200 benchmark above the 7,600 mark.

After an initial high of 7,622.70, the S&P/ASX 200 Index is at 7,619.50 marking a growth of 7 points, or 0.09%. Concurrently, the All Ordinaries Index rose by 8.2 points or 0.10% to 7,870.50. Tuesday saw Australian stocks decline considerably.

Prominent miners like BHP Group and Mineral Resources experienced a loss of nearly 1% each, Fortescue Metals dropped by 0.3% while Rio Tinto suffered a fall of more than 1%, owing to a drop in iron ore production and shipment in Q1 2024.

On the other hand, most oil stocks were in the green. Santos, Beach Energy, and Woodside Energy each rose 0.1 to 0.3%, while Origin Energy increased by almost 1%. In the tech sector, Afterpay owner Block and Zip rose over 1% each whereas WiseTech Global edged up 0.3%. However, Appen and Xero fell by 1.5% and 0.3% respectively. Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ Banking rose slightly by 0.4 to 0.5%, while Westpac increased nearly 1%. National Australia Bank saw no substantial change.

Gold miners too experienced a positive surge. Resolute Mining and Gold Road Resources rose by nearly 2%, Northern Star Resources increased by 0.3% whereas Evolution Mining climbed over 5% buoyed by a favourable quarterly report. Newmont, however, fell 0.5%.

In related news, after the awarding of a NATO contract to their partner in Belgium and Luxembourg, Droneshield's shares sky-rocketed by 14%. Shares in Lynas Rare Earths climbed 3.3% after Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting purchased a significant stake in the enterprise. However, despite cash earnings exceeding analysts' expectations, Bank of Queensland's shares plunged by 6% due to a decline in earnings in the six months preceding February.

In international currency exchange, the Australian dollar is trading at $0.641.

On Wall Street, Tuesday saw indecisiveness with the sell-off from the previous two sessions causing fluctuations leading to a close mix. Rising 63.86 points or 0.2% to 37,798.97, the Dow halted its six-session fall, the Nasdaq fell 19.77 points or 0.1% to 15,865.25 while the S&P 500 slid down 10.41 points or 0.2% to 5,051.41.

Major European markets also experienced considerable downturn with the UK's FTSE 100 Index dropping by 1.8%, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index fell by 1.4% each.

Crude oil prices remained fairly stable on Tuesday but eased off slightly as US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen signaled plans for new sanctions on Iran in response to its attack on Israel. The price for May delivery of West Texas Intermediate crude fell by $0.05 or 0.1% to $85.36 per barrel.