The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission plans to reject authorisation for electricity industry participants to coordinate repair, maintenance, and upgrades due to concerns that it wouldn’t substantially enhance the Australian Energy Market Operator’s outage management capabilities and might harm competition. Instead, the ACCC believes that upcoming reforms by the Australian Energy Market Commission will better assist AEMO in handling outages during the transition to renewable electricity generation.
At the closing bell, the S&P/ASX 200 was 0.21 per cent higher at 7,103.10.
Futures
The Dow Jones futures are pointing to a rise of 72 points.
The S&P 500 futures are pointing to a rise of 13.5 points.
The Nasdaq futures are pointing to a rise of 48.75 points.
The SPI futures are up 14 points.
Best and worst performers
The best-performing sector was Financials, up 1.1 per cent. The worst-performing sector was Health Care, down 4.11 per cent.
The best-performing large cap was Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS), closing 3.96 per cent higher at $4.2. It was followed by shares in SEEK (ASX:SEK) and Allkem (ASX:AKE).
The worst-performing large cap was CSL (ASX:CSL), closing 5.7 per cent lower at $239.77. It was followed by shares in ResMed (ASX:RMD) and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation (ASX:FPH).
Asian markets
Japan’s Nikkei has gained 1.60 per cent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has gained 1.89 per cent.
China’s Shanghai Composite has gained 0.82 per cent.
Commodities and the dollar
Gold is trading at US$1,891.70 an ounce.
Iron ore is 1.9 per cent higher at US$116.25 a tonne.
Iron ore futures are pointing to a 0.72 per cent rise.
Light crude is trading $-0.34 lower at US$83.15 a barrel.
One Australian dollar is buying 64.21 US cents.