It has been a dismal end to the trading session for the Australian share market. Following on from yesterday’s losses and a poor lead from Wall Street, the local bourse took a dive at the open and continued to weaken throughout the session before closing 1.35 per cent lower. The financials space proved to be the biggest drag on the market today with losses across all of the big four banks. At the end of the day NAB was the worst performer in that space shedding 2.75 per cent. The materials space proved to be the most resilent today with solid gains in the gold miners after the price of the precious metal rose about 1 per cent overnight.
The S&P/ASX 200 index closed 75 points lower to finish at 5,466.
The value of trades was $5 billion on volume of 763 million shares at the close of trade. The top three stocks by value were Commonwealth Bank of Australia
(ASX:CBA), ANZ Banking Group
(ASX:ANZ) and National Australia Bank Limited
(ASX:NAB).
On the futures market the SPI is 81 points down.
Company newsTatts Group
(ASX:TTS) has responded to media speculation confirming it has been in discussions for some time with Intralot SA in relation to a potential acquisition by Tatt’s of Intralot’s Australian and New Zealand businesses. The company says discussions have advanced to a due diligence stage and Intralot has agreed to conduct this process on an exclusive basis with Tatts. Shares in Tatts Group closed 3.4 per cent down at $3.98.
Rio Tinto Ltd
(ASX:RIO) will invest $338 million to complete the development of the Silvergrass iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia Ltd
(ASX:GMA) has reported $135.8 million in statutory net profit for the half year ended 30 June 2016. The company says this is a 20% increase compared to the same period last year.
Beach Energy Ltd
(ASX:BPT) has entered a deal to sell its Queensland oil assets to another oil and gas company, Bridgeport (Cooper Basin) Pty Ltd – but hasn’t disclosed what the price is yet.
Best and worst performersThe sector with the least losses was Materials losing 0.1 per cent to close at 8,614. The worst performing sector was Financials excluding REITs, losing 2.1 per cent to close at 6,588 points.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 was Seven Group Holdings, rising 7.65 per cent to close at $7.18. Shares in Genworth Mortgage and St Barbara also closed higher.
The worst performing stock was Seven West Media, dropping 10.06 per cent to close at $0.76. Shares in Mantra Group and Select Harvests also closed lower.
IPOsViva EnergyLimited
(ASX:COM) started trading today. The petrol station owner listed with an issue price of $2.20, opened at $2.50 and closed at $2.56.
Commodities and the dollarGold is trading at $US1,365 an ounce.
Light crude is $0.55 lower at $US39.51 a barrel.
The Australian dollar is buying $US0.7591.
