A stronger-than-expected increase in inflation took the shine off a strong intraday bounce on the Australian sharemarket as investors mulled the impact on any future interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of Australia.<\/p>\n
The S&P\/ASX 200 was up 0.7 per cent, or 62.80 points, to 8599.80 at 12.17pm AEDT, after having been up by as much as 1.2 per cent to 8637.90.<\/p>\n
The first complete monthly inflation dataset showed a year-on-year increase to 3.8 per cent in October, compared to 3.6 per cent expected by markets. EToro market analyst Farhan Badami said the release reiterated to markets that the RBA\u2019s rate-cutting journey may be done. \u201cThis pretty much confirms the RBA\u2019s easing cycle might be over before it really started, potentially locking in that 4.35 per cent cash rate through mid-2026 at least. If inflation doesn\u2019t get any better, it could even add pressure on the RBA to increase rates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Health was the strongest sector as CSL lifted 0.7 per cent, ResMed 2.4 per cent and Ramsay Health Care by 4.7 per cent. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare surged 3.8 per cent after the group upgraded its full-year guidance, citing favourable exchange rates.<\/p>\n
Retailers also enjoyed a strong bounce amid Black Friday sales. Wesfarmers lifted 2.1 per cent and JB Hi-Fi by 2.2 per cent. Harvey Norman trimmed earlier gains to be up 0.3 per cent after it reported a 9.1 per cent increase in aggregated sales revenue for the period from July 1 to November 20.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Temple & Webster crashed 32.3 per cent \u2013 the most in about 10 years \u2013 as top-line growth in the half to date tracked behind expectations and sales growth of 18 per cent was less than previously guided.<\/p>\n
Materials were up 1 per cent as lithium producer PLS soared 6.4 per cent and Mineral Resources by 3.5 per cent as the UK plans to stockpile critical minerals to reduce its reliance on China.<\/p>\n
The rate-sensitive technology sector paced falls as Xero lost 0.2 per cent, TechnologyOne 2.1 per cent, and Life360 by 3.4 per cent.<\/p>\n
Stocks in focus<\/p>\n
In company news, the bourse\u2019s newest stock, Sea Forest, was up 13 per cent after it commenced trading following a $20.5 million IPO at $2 per share. It had hit an intraday peak of $2.59 \u2013 a gain of 30 per cent.<\/p>\n
Electro Optic Systems soared 8.2 per cent even as the Federal Court handed down a $4 million penalty from the company admitting to breaching its continuous disclosure obligations.<\/p>\n
Guzman y Gomez added 3.2 per cent as JPMorgan analyst Bryan Raymond upgraded the fast food group from \u201cunderweight\u201d to \u201cneutral\u201d, citing reduced valuation pressure from a share price decline to its IPO level and a de-rating across the global quick service restaurant sector.<\/p>\n
And DroneShield rose 9.8 per cent, a second straight day of strong gains, after it reported a $5.2 million European military contract and as chief executive Oleg Vornik calmed investors about dumping $50 million worth of shares this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A stronger-than-expected increase in inflation took the shine off a strong intraday bounce on the Australian sharemarket as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-153899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}