3 straight days of selling: Aus shares 0.7% lower at noon

Market Reports

by Jessica Amir

The Australian share market is shaping up for its third day of straight losses, following on from Wall Street’s woes. It comes as the Dow Jones lost over 400 points with President Donald Trump announcing that the US government will set tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium. 

The local shiners this session are gold stocks which are bucking trend and going higher. Saracen Minerals (ASX:SAR), St Barbara (ASX:SBM), Resolute Mining (ASX:RSG) are all up over 1.5 per cent. It comes as gold, the safe haven commodity is rallying on the back of global stock market falls.

The likes of CSR (ASX:CSR) is also charging, along with Spark NZ (ASX:SPK) 

Also important to note, we are being also held back today with a lot of companies going ex-dividend including Sothern Cross Media, and Altium, two of the worst performers.

The S&P/ASX 200 index is 43 points down at 5,930. On the futures market the SPI is 48 points higher.

Company news 

Carnegie Clean Energy (ASX:CCE) announced it received $2.3 million in research and development tax incentives from the ATO. The tax rebate supports companies undertaking R&D, for which the company completed in the financial year ending 2017. The rebate is based on how much the solar, energy and battery storage company spent on in eligible R&D payments. Its shares are trading 2.6 per cent lower at 3.8 cents.

Centrex Metals (ASX:CXM) the resources exploration and mining company, completed its feasibility drilling program in North West Queensland. The study was due to be completed mid-2018. It will reveal assay results later this month and will start updating its resource estimates this month. Its shares are trading flat at 14 cents.

Best and worst performers

The best performing sector, with the least losses, is reits falling 0.3 per cent to 1,304 points while the worst performing sector is consumer staples, shedding 1.3 per cent to 10,171 points.

The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Resolute Mining Limited (ASX:RSG), rising 1.8 per cent to $1.13, followed by shares in Saracen Mineral Holdings Limited (ASX:SAR) and St Barbara Limited (ASX:SBM).

The worst performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 is Southern Cross Media Group Limited (ASX:SXL), dropping 4.8 per cent to $1.04, followed by shares in Orocobre Limited (ASX:ORE) and Altium (ASX:ALU).

Gold and the dollar

Gold is trading at $US1,316 an ounce.
One Australian dollar is buying 77.71 US cents.

Cryptocurrencies

The three most traded cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin has gained 6 per cent to US$11,082, Tether is trading at US$1.00, and Ethereum has gained about 1.5 per cent to US$870.



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