AU Morning Wrap: Pilbara Tumbles 4%; Bullock 'Wary' of CPI as She Mulls Another Rate Rise

Moomoo News AU wrote a column · Oct 25, 2023 19:05

G'day, mooers! Check out the latest news on today's stock market!
• S&P 500 tumbles on disappointing Alphabet earnings
• Tech stocks drag ASX lower; Pilbara drops
• Stocks to watch: Westpac, Pilbara Minerals, Coles
- Moomoo News AU

AU Morning Wrap: Pilbara Tumbles 4%; Bullock 'Wary' of CPI as She Mulls Another Rate Rise

Wall Street Summary

A steep drop in shares of $Alphabet-C(GOOG.US)$, $Amazon(AMZN.US)$ and other technology companies dragged the into correction territory Wednesday.

The tech-heavy $Nasdaq Composite Index(.IXIC.US)$ slid 2.4% in a punishing session that pulled it down more than 10% from its recent high. Its losses accelerated in the afternoon, sending the gauge to one of its worst one-day declines of the year.

The $S&P 500 Index(.SPX.US)$ fell 1.4%, closing at its lowest level since May. The $Dow Jones Industrial Average(.DJI.US)$ shed 105 points, or 0.3%.

AU Market Watch

The Australian sharemarket opened lower on Thursday after Wall Street fell on mixed profit reports from Microsoft and Alphabet.

The benchmark $S&P/ASX 200(.XJO.AU)$ fell 0.6 per cent or 42.6 points to 6811.9 at market open, weighed by sharp losses in tech stocks. The information technology sector was the worst performer, tumbling more than 2 per cent. $Megaport Ltd(MP1.AU)$ lost 12.6 per cent, $WiseTech Global Ltd(WTC.AU)$ shed 2.6 per cent and $Xero Ltd(XRO.AU)$ declined 3.2 per cent.

Michele Bullock says she is wary of the latest inflation numbers and said the RBA may need to raise the cash rate again.

We're looking at some of the more persistent parts of inflation [and] asking ourselves, 'Are there signs that those might be coming down in the future?'"

We've made that very clear, even though we haven't raised interest rates since our last interest rate rise in June, we've made it very clear that we might need to go again," she told One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts.

Stocks to Watch

$Westpac Banking Corp(WBC.AU)$: Westpac slipped 0.6 per cent. The big four bank said it was going to lose $173 million to significant items such as restructuring costs, customer remediation and litigation in its financial year ended September 30.

$Pilbara Minerals Ltd(PLS.AU)$: Pilbara Minerals tumbled 4.2 per cent after its revenue was 42 per cent lower than the prior quarter, at $493.1 million in the September quarter. The company blamed weaker lithium prices and lower production volumes on the result.

$Coles Group Ltd(COL.AU)$: Coles fell 0.2 per cent after even as its supermarkets sales revenue increased 4.7 per cent to $9.2 million in the first quarter. Total group sales revenue rose 3.6 per cent $10.3 million.

$JB Hi Fi Ltd(JBH.AU)$: White goods and electronics retailer JB Hi-Fi dropped 1 per cent after reporting a slowdown in sales, according to its latest quarterly update. Total sales growth for JB HI-FI Australia slipped 0.1 per cent. Compared with pre-COVID-19 pandemic FY19, total sales growth had jumped 40.5 per cent.

$Fortescue Ltd(FMG.AU)$: Fortescue Metals lost 1.2 per cent. The mining giant shipped 45.9 million tonnes of iron ore through Port Hedland in the September quarter; down from 48.9 million tonnes in the previous three months and 47.5 million in the same period of last year.