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Weakness crept back into the market today as more traders got back behind their desks post Christmas break, with volumes increasing across the board. After a flat start to trade, US Futures came under pressure as Trump threatened 10% tariffs on several European countries from February, rising to 25% in June, unless the European Union agrees to negotiations linked to the “purchase of Greenland”.
8 of 11 sectors traded low, with safe havens such as Gold & Utilities the place to be while the broader resource sector was well supported on solid Chinese growth data.
- The ASX200 fell-29pts/-0.33% to close at 8874.
- Utilities (+0.99%), Materials (+0.42%) and Energy (+0.20%) the three sectors that finished higher.
- IT (-2.49%), Communications (-1.11%) and Consumer Discretionary (-0.76%) the weakest links.
- China reported GDP growth of 5% in 2025, meeting the government’s target, though growth slowed to 4.5% in the December quarter, highlighting ongoing weakness in domestic demand despite strong exports.
- Gold stocks continued to surge with geopolitical rumblings growing louder by the day – Northern Star Resources (NST) +3.2%, Perseus Mining (PRU) +3.6% and Bellevue Gold (BGL) +4.6%.
- Catalyst Metals (CYL) +7.1% reported a new high-grade gold discovery at their Cinnamon project in the Plutonic gold belt in Western Australia.
- High-multiple stocks were hit with WiseTech Global (WTC) -4.4% and Life360 (360) -7.5% extending recent heavy selling.
- NextDC (NXT) +1.2% bucked the tech-selloff trend as its M4 Melbourne data centre development application was approved
- The Big Four were modestly lower but still enough to weigh on the index ANZ -0.4%, Commonwealth Bank (CBA) -0.7%, Westpac (WBC) -0.6% with NAB –1% falling the most.
- City Chic Collective (CCX) +3.6% rose after reporting first-half revenue of $69.2m, down 0.5% YoY, with ANZ growth offset by a 31.4% slump in Americas sales as inventory purchases were cut amid tariff uncertainty
- NRW Holdings (NWH) -2.7% was lower despite its Golding Contractors subsidiary securing a $750m, 5.5-year mining services contract at Queensland’s Stanwell Meandu Mine
- Syrah Resources (SYR) was flat after the graphite miner secured an extension to March 16 to remedy an alleged breach of its Tesla offtake agreement.
- PolyNovo (PNV) -0.4% after reporting a 26% jump in unaudited first-half sales to $68.2m
- Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) +0.7% after European billionaire Olivier Goudet lifted his stake to 6.13%.
- Gold rallied $US75/oz during our time zone today, trading at US$4671/oz – which equates to just shy of $A7000/oz – phenomenal!
- Iron ore was mildly higher trading $US111.55/mt
- Asian markets were mixed, with China up +0.4%, Hong Kong off –0.8% and Japan down -1%
- US futures fell ~1% during our time zone today.
