• The ASX finishes higher on Monday
  • Energy / Resource only outperforming sectors 
  • ASX 200 quarterly rebalance sees 8 stocks in and 8 stocks out of the index

The ASX ended Monday higher by 0.2% and trimmed last week’s losses despite a weak lead from Wall Street.

Energy and Miners were the stand 0ut sectors, up by 4% and 2% respectively.

On Friday, Russian giant Gazprom announced an indefinite shutdown of its key Nord Stream 1 pipeline, killing off gas flows to Germany and other parts of Europe.

The move came just hours after G7 countries agreed to impose a price cap on Russian oil in an attempt to stem the flow of funds to Putin’s regime.

“Companies that impose a price cap will not be among the recipients of Russian oil,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The pipeline was already on an unscheduled maintenance work since August 31st, but was supposed to have come back on line by Sunday before the latest announcement.

Another geopolitical event impacting the price of oil is the nuclear talks between Iran and the US, which now appear to have stalled.

Each party is claiming they had sent a “constructive” response to proposals, with the other deeming them “not constructive”.

“A deal has been a big downside risk for oil prices recently (which fell 10% over the past week), something Saudi Arabia sought to counter with warnings of production cuts from the alliance,” said OANDA analyst, Craig Erlam.

Brent crude surged by more than 2% in Asian hours to US$95.15 a barrel.

Meanwhile, following the quarterly rebalance of the ASX 200 index, there are now 8 new entrants to the index:

Capricorn Metals, Charter Hall Social Infrastructure REIT, Johns Lyng Group, Karoon Energy, Lovisa Holdings, Smartgroup Corp, Spark New Zealand and Sayona Mining.

There are also 8 stocks which have left the benchmark index:

AVZ Minerals, City Chic Collective , Clinuvel Pharma, EML Payments, Janus Henderson, Life360, Pointsbet, and Zip.

In economics news, the ANZ job ads in August have exceeded the March peek, lending further support that inflation might still be a problem.

The RBA board meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, and experts have predicted another 50bp rate hike this month.

Looking ahead tonight, it’s Labour day holiday in the US, but the Euro Sentix consumer confidence and Euro retail sales are due out .

BIG CAP WINNERS

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Energy stocks like Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC), New Hope (ASX:NHC) and Beach Energy (ASX:BPT) are some of the best performers.

Maas Group (ASX:MGH) and Pexa Group (ASX:PXA) rose 10% and 7% respectively after they were inducted into the ASX 300 index.

BIG CAP LOSERS

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Fortescue (ASX:FMG) was down almost 5% today on no news.