• ASX 200 fell for a second straight day
  • Lithium, iron ore, and gold stocks weighed on the index
  • Incitec Pivot fell 8pc after a decline in first half earnings

 

The ASX200 has notched up its second straight day of losses, as lithium miners weighed on the index.

Gold miners also weighed on the index, as spot gold came under pressure following a rebound in retail sales in the US, and uncertainty over the debt ceiling crisis.

The Tech sector meanwhile climbed 1.5%, with Xero (ASX:XRO) being the performer, up 3% on no specific news.

Meanwhile, Australian wage growth has hit a 11-year high in the March quarter, with salaries increasing on average by by 3.7% over the past year.

According to the ABS, the private sector was the main driver of growth.

“A number of private sector industries have recorded annual wages growth above 4 per cent, with the remaining industries all above 3 per cent annual growth,” said Leigh Merrington, ABS acting head of prices statistics.

Quad meeting cancelled

China has a youth jobless problem, with unemployment amongst 16-to-24 year olds hitting 20.4% in April.

The problem is set to get worse, as an estimated 11.58 million graduates are expected to flood the market this year.

Elsewhere, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said his company does not control OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, despite committing US$10bn for its development.

Nadella pushed back on claims made by Elon Musk who said that Microsoft had a grip on the technology.

Closer to home, the Quad meeting set for next week has been cancelled by US President Biden due to his domestic debt ceiling crisis.

Albanese proposed that members of the Quad (Aust, US, India, Japan) meet in Hiroshima instead, given all were going for the G7 meeting this week anyway.

 

BIG CAP WINNERS

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After rising 13% yesterday, family focused mobile app platform Life360 (ASX:360) surged another 6%.  The company reported a 34% increase in Q1 revenue to $68.1m.

United Malt (ASX:UMG) rose 2.5% after reporting that group revenue increased by 16% to $756.6 million in the first half.

The company maintained its FY23 Underlying EBITDA guidance at $140m – $160m (before SaaS costs and one-off items).

 

BIG CAP LOSERS

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Making headlines today was fertiliser and explosives manufacturer, Incitec Pivot (ASX:IPL), which fell over -8% after reporting a 6% decline in H1 earnings to $361.9m – missing estimates by a huge 21% margin. IPL however expects a positive earnings skew in the second half for its Explosives businesses.

Weebit Nano (ASX:WBT) fell another 7% after saying that it did not know why its share price went from an intraday high of $7.43 to an intraday low of $6.03 yesterday.

Lithium heavyweights Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) and Sayona Mining (ASX:SYA) fell around 4% each despite higher commodity prices overnight.

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