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Domino’s Pizza rose 1.4 per cent after revealing its executive chairman and biggest investor, Jack Cowin, of Hungry Jack’s fame, spent some $5 million buying more shares in the pizza chain.
The laggards
Energy stocks were mixed as oil prices weakened amid reports OPEC+ was considering raising production later this year. Oil and gas giant Woodside fell 0.7 per cent, while Santos recovered from losses earlier in the session and closed up 0.3 per cent.
IAG dropped 0.4 per cent after the ACCC flagged concerns the insurance giant’s planned $1.35 billion purchase of the Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia’s insurance operations could lead to a substantial lessening of competition.
Gold miners struggled after spot prices of the haven asset softened, having touched a record above $US3578 on Wednesday. Northern Star Resources dropped 1.3 per cent, Evolution Mining edged down 0.1 per cent, and Newmont dipped 0.2 per cent.
The lowdown
It was the calm after the storm on the Australian sharemarket on Thursday. After the $57 billion sell-off of the previous session, bargain hunters went back in and boosted share prices, heartened by gains in Wall Street overnight.
The recovery came after a spike in bond yields caused the top-200 to plummet 1.8 per cent on Wednesday in its worst session since April 9, in the days after US tariff announcements roiled global markets.
“The ASX 200 has rebounded above 8800 today, recovering half of the ground it lost in yesterday’s day of carnage,” IG Markets analyst Tony Sycamore said.
“[It] followed a positive session on Wall Street as soft US jobs data and dovish Fed speak doused flames in bond markets threatening to burn out of control.”
The S&P 500 added 0.5 per cent and broke the two-day losing streak it’s been on since setting its latest all-time high as Alphabet and other technology stocks rose. The Dow Jones slipped 0.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1 per cent.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, was one of the strongest forces lifting the US market. It climbed 9 per cent after avoiding some of the worst-case scenarios in its antitrust case. A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a shake-up of Google’s search engine but did not force a sale of its Chrome browser.
Because Alphabet is one of Wall Street’s most valuable companies, its stock movements carry more weight on the S&P 500 and other indexes than the typical company’s.
Google’s parent company was one of the strongest forces lifting the US market.Credit: Bloomberg
Apple rose 3.8 per cent after analysts highlighted how the ruling will still allow it to sign lucrative search deals with Google.
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Also helping to steady Wall Street was a calming bond market. A day earlier, rising yields for government bonds around the world raised the pressure on the sharemarket. Yields climbed on worries about governments’ abilities to repay their growing mountains of debt, as well as concerns that Trump’s pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut short-term interest rates could lead to higher inflation in the long term.
Such worries have pushed investors to demand higher yields to lend money to governments worldwide. And when bonds are paying more in interest, investors are less likely to pay high prices for stocks, which are riskier investments.
On Wednesday, Treasury yields retreated following the latest report on the US job market to come in weaker than expected. The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.21 per cent from 4.28 per cent late on Tuesday, for example.
The report showed US employers were advertising 7.2 million job openings at the end of July, fewer than economists had forecast. The number bolsters the growing sense on Wall Street that the job market may be ossifying into a low-hire, low-fire state.
A weakened job market could push the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at its next meeting scheduled for later this month. That’s the widespread expectation among traders.
Lower interest rates could give the US job market and overall economy a boost, along with prices for investments. The downside is that they can also push inflation higher when Trump’s tariffs may be set to raise prices for all kinds of imports.
With AP, Bloomberg
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