Lithium miners PLS, MIN, LTR rocket on JPMorgan upgrades; JBH; JHX slide
The sharemarket fell on Thursday, extending the sharpest one-day drop in two months in the previous session, as investors continued to recalibrate the interest rate expectations.
After the market was spooked by the red-hot inflation report on Wednesday in Australia, Wall Street fell overnight as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell showed unexpected caution about the path of future rate cuts.
Property stocks extend sell-off
That erased earlier gains for the S&P 500 Index, which finished flat on the day, weighing on the local bourse. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index dipped 0.2 per cent, or by 20.6 points, to 8905.06 as of 2.04pm AEDT, with six of the 11 index sectors lower.
With talk of further interest rate cuts off the table in Australia and possibly America, at least for this year, the rate-sensitive property sector extended its sell-off. Mirvac, Dexus and Stockland Group were down by between 2 per cent and 5 per cent.
Consumer discretionary stocks were another drag on the market, led by a 6 per cent sell-off in Wesfarmers.
Electronics retailer JB Hi-Fi dropped 5.1 per cent despite sales in its Australian division matching last year’s growth of 6 per cent in the September quarter.
Bargain hunters stepped back into the banking sector with the big four lenders all trading modestly higher.
And lithium stocks soared after JPMorgan raised its forecast for long-term spodumene spot prices, as well as upgrading PLS, Australia’s largest pure-play lithium stock, to “overweight” from “neutral”. PLS rose 5.8 per cent.
Mineral Resources, which also posted earnings that beat expectations after record iron ore shipments, rocketed 13.9 per cent. Liontown jumped 10.7 per cent.
Stocks on the move
In company news, Coles fell 3 per cent as the September quarter update fell slightly short of expectations. The retailer reported a 3.9 per cent rise in group sales as supermarket revenue climbed 4.8 per cent to $9.97 billion.
That growth was better than the 2.1 per cent revealed on Wednesday by Woolworths, which rose 3.4 per cent on Thursday.
James Hardie fell 3 per cent after chairwoman Anne Lloyd was voted off the board along with two other directors, Rada Rodriguez and Peter-John Davis.
Ampol dropped 2.6 per cent despite posting a sharp lift in refining margins and stronger earnings in the September quarter. The margin at its Lytton refinery jumped to $US10.64 a barrel, up from $US1.48 a year earlier.
And Appen fell 4.9 per cent after it reported ongoing US market volatility in the September quarter that limited revenue growth to 2 per cent.
