The sharemarket fell on Tuesday amid conflicting messages from the US and Iran on a diplomatic resolution to ending the war, and as investors reacted to a slightly higher than expected wage increase.<\/p>\n
The S&P\/ASX 200 Index eased 30 points, or by 0.3 per cent, to 8699.40 at 2.15pm AEST, after being down by more than 1.2 per cent at one stage. Seven of the 11 sectors were lower.<\/p>\n
After Wall Street rallied to fresh records overnight, US futures are pointing to a loss of about 0.4 per cent as mixed signals from the Middle East clouded prospects of a peace deal.<\/p>\n
Brent crude slid 0.7 per cent to $US94.30 a barrel following its biggest one-day gain in a month overnight. US President Donald Trump said talks were progressing rapidly and that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to halt attacks, and Iran threatened to suspend diplomatic ties and close the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
On the ASX, investors dumped retailers and shopping centre operators after the Fair Work Commission approved a 4.75 per cent wage increase \u2013 slightly above market expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision puts further downward pressure on retail margins in what we expect to be a tougher trading environment in FY27. We see discretionary retailers with large store sizes as being best placed to manage this cost inflation given flexibility in rostering,\u201d said Citi analyst Adrian Lemme.<\/p>\n
Vicinity Centres fell 3.4 per cent, Scentre, the Australian operator of Westfield, dropped 3.2 per cent, Woolworths fell 2.1 per cent and JB Hi-Fi dived 6.2 per cent.<\/p>\n
Banks trimmed heavier losses with Commonwealth Bank down 0.2 per cent, National Australia Bank 0.4 per cent, Westpac 1.9 per cent and ANZ 3 per cent.<\/p>\n
In the materials sector, gold miners were weak as bullion traded around $US4490 an ounce, having lost 1 per cent in the previous session.<\/p>\n
Northern Star bucked the trend, surging 12.5 per cent as activist hedge fund Elliott Management demanded urgent action at the gold miner, after calling it out for \u201coperational missteps, cost overruns and inconsistent strategic direction\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tech stocks also soared following strong offshore gains for the sector, with Xero up 6.9 per cent, WiseTech Global 6.3 per cent and Life360 10.1 per cent.<\/p>\n
Stock in focus<\/p>\n
In company news, SRG Global leapt 15 per cent after the infrastructure services company secured $1.85 billion in new contracts, upgraded its earnings guidance for this financial year and set a stronger outlook for next year.<\/p>\n
Engineering services company Tasmea soared 16.2 per cent on Tuesday after it announced plans to acquire specialist contractor Maxim Group in a deal valued at up to $254 million.<\/p>\n
DroneShield added 2.6 per cent as it secured a $24.9 million contract to supply counter-drone systems to the US Department of War\u2019s Joint Interagency Task Force 401.<\/p>\n
4DMedical fell 4.2 per cent as it launched a clinical evidence program aimed at expanding its CT:VQ technology into the acute pulmonary embolism market.<\/p>\n
Nine Entertainment, publisher of The Australian Financial Review, fell 2.6 per cent after it completed the conversion of its regional television assets in Northern NSW and Darwin into affiliate operations, with WIN Network now owning the businesses.<\/p>\n
Collins Foods slid 1.3 per cent as it acquired eight KFC restaurants in Bavaria, Germany, increasing its store network in the country by about 50 per cent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sharemarket fell on Tuesday amid conflicting messages from the US and Iran on a diplomatic resolution to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-709716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}