The Australian sharemarket fell at Friday's open weighed down by iron ore and gold miners. At noon, the ASX/200 is 0.9 per cent or 68 points lower at 7392.2. The SPI futures are pointing to a fall of 72 points.
Across the sectors, materials are the worst performer, down 3.6 per per cent, with energy not far behind. Financials are also under-performing, while technology is higher.
After iron ore prices tumbled, Fortescue Metals
(ASX:FMG) has dropped 9.6 per cent, BHP
(ASX:BHP) is trading 2.7 per cent lower and Rio Tinto
(ASX:RIO) is trading 3.1 per cent lower. Meanwhile gold prices did the same, with Northern Star Resources
(ASX:NST) down 4.1 per cent and Evolution Mining
(ASX:EVN) down 3.1 per cent.
Oil stocks are mixed. Santos
(ASX:STO) and Oil Search
(ASX:OSH) are down 1.3 and 0.9 per cent while Woodside Petroleum
(ASX:WPL) is edging 0.5 per cent higher. Investment company Soul Pattinson
(ASX:SOL) is down 3.9 per cent.
All major banks are in the red, with NAB
(ASX:NAB) trading the lowest, down 1.2 per cent.
In headlines, Iress
(ASX:IRE) is trading 11.2 per cent lower, after the private equity firm EQT walked away from its deal to acquire the financial software company.
Company news Private equity firm EQT has walked away from the deal with Iress
(ASX:IRE) after failing to reach an agreement on revised $15.91 cash per share offer from July.
IPOSSH Group Ltd
(ASX:SSH) has listed on the ASX with the issue price of $0.20. The shares opened at $0.26 and now trading at $0.275.
Best and worst performersThe best-performing sector is Information Technology, up almost 1 per cent. The worst-performing sector is Materials, down 3.6 per cent.
The best-performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is PointsBet Holdings
(ASX:PBH), trading 5.1 per cent higher at $9.65. It is followed by shares in Redbubble
(ASX:RBL) and G8 Education
(ASX:GEM).
The worst-performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is IRESS
(ASX:IRE), trading 11.2 per cent lower at $12.01. It is followed by shares in Fortescue Metals Group
(ASX:FMG) and Whitehaven Coal
(ASX:WHC).
Commodities and the dollarGold is trading at US$1755.88 an ounce.
Iron ore is 8.1 per cent lower at US$107.21 a ton.
Iron ore futures are pointing to a fall of 4.2 per cent.
One Australian dollar is buying 72.82 US cents.
