A dour session from the big banks and major losses for miner Rio Tinto and telco giant Telstra kept a lid on the Australian sharemarket on Tuesday with the index ending an uneventful day marginally in the red.
The local bourse rose by 0.3 per cent above 5900 at the open thanks to a strong Wall Street lead, but soon sagged under the heavyweight financials to close 0.1 per cent lower at 5894.8.
ANZ led losses for the big four with a 1.9 per cent drop to $17.35, with Commonwealth Bank shedding 1.7 per cent to $65.03, Westpac down 1.5 per cent to $16.72, and NAB 1.4 per cent lower at $17.16.
Gold miners enjoyed strong gains on Tuesday as the precious metal price increased to a two-week high. Credit:Getty
Biotech CSL, tech darling Afterpay, and miner BHP did their best to offset losses but failed to inspire a wider rally in a session light on corporate news.
Not even the announcement of a lockdown reprieve for regional Victorians, or a better-than-expected dump of Chinese data appeared to excite ASX investors.
There were no market-moving surprises from the September minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia meeting.
ANZ head of Australian economics David Plank said the release added little to the understanding of how monetary policy might evolve.
“In our view the timing and extent of further monetary policy measures will depend critically on fiscal policy… we think the upcoming federal and state budgets will contain enough stimulus to reasonably expect a relatively strong recovery in 2021,” Mr Plank said.
“If this is the case, then we think the RBA will hold off from taking further steps until sometime into 2021.”
Portfolio manager at Tribeca Investment Partners, Jun Bei Liu, said macro issues, lockdown updates, and vaccine news would likely continue to drive post-earnings season sentiment amid a relative dearth of corporate highlights.
She said in Australia, the traditional post-reporting season roadshow has been shorter than usual this year, meaning a lot of investor positions are now locked in.
"Because everything is done virtually, the one-on-one meetings have been much closer to result time,'' she explained.
"It used to take a little bit longer into September and we got a second wave of reactions. But this year we are already done.''
Gold miners again lifted with the price of the precious metal, with Newcrest adding 1.9 per cent to $33, Northern Star up 7.4 per cent to $14.92, and Evolution 3.9 per cent higher at $6.13.
Rio Tinto went the other way, eroding yesterday’s gains by 1.5 per cent to close at $102.13. Fortescue Metals also gave up an early lead to finish slightly lower at $17.70.
BHP climbed 0.7 per cent to $37.49 and along with CSL outperformed the broader market. CSL finished 1.5 per cent higher at $287.45.
Toll giant Transurban gained 0.9 per cent to $14.22 and Goodman Group added 1.5 per cent to $18.25 to lift the property sector. Afterpay gained 3.4 per cent to $75.01 to lead tech shares higher.
Telstra dropped 2.1 per cent to $2.82 and Macquarie Group continued Monday’s slide with a 1.3 per cent drop to $118.69.