At the closing bell, the S&P/ASX 200 was 0.06 per cent lower at 7,314.3.
The central bank’s September policy meeting resulted in no changes to the cash rate target or the interest rate paid on Exchange Settlement balances, maintaining them at 4.10% and 4.00% respectively. Over the past year, interest rates have been raised by 4 percentage points to create a more balanced economic environment between supply and demand. Despite economic uncertainties, the decision was made to keep interest rates steady to assess the impact of previous rate increases and the overall economic outlook. While there’s a possibility of further tightening of monetary policy to bring inflation back to target, this will depend on data and risk assessments. The central bank will closely monitor global economic trends, household spending, inflation, and the job market, reaffirming its commitment to achieving the inflation target.
Futures
The Dow Jones futures are pointing to a fall of 72.00 points.
The S&P 500 futures are pointing to a fall of 9.75 points.
The Nasdaq futures are pointing to a fall of 32.5 points.
The SPI futures are down 12.00 points.
Best and worst performers
The best-performing sector was Health Care, up 0.77 per cent. The worst-performing sector was Utilities, down 1.18 per cent.
The best-performing large cap was IGO (ASX:IGO), closing 2.38 per cent higher at $14.61. It was followed by shares in Auckland International Airport (ASX:AIA) and Computershare (ASX:CPU).
The worst-performing large cap was Yancoal Australia (ASX:YAL), closing 8.89 per cent lower at $5.02. It was followed by shares in Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) and Origin Energy (ASX:ORG).
Company news
Empire Energy (ASX:EEG) has announced increased flow rates at their C-3H Project. In response, Managing Director Alex Underwood commented, “The technical learning that is occurring is rapidly building our understanding of how to develop the Beetaloo’s Velkerri Shale. We believe that this will have positive implications for the productivity of future development wells.”
INOVIQ (ASX:IIQ) and ResearchDx have signed an agreement to supply Inoviq’s EXO-NET exosome capture technology to enable provision of exosome isolation, biomarker discovery and diagnostics development services in the USA. In response, Dr Leearne Hinch, INOVIQ CEO, said, “this is an important, strategic move that enables us to provide high quality EXO-NET services to customers in the US, Australia and elsewhere, expanding our revenue generation opportunities for EXO-NET.”
Southern Cross Gold (ASX:SXG) announces the best hole drilled to date on the project, a spectacularly wide and high grade intersection of gold-antimony mineralisation at the 100%-owned Sunday Creek Project in Victoria. In response, Managing Director, Michael Hudson, states, “One of our key strategies is to target high grades. When this is done in a good deposit, generally more drilling improves the discovery rate of high-grade material.”
Commodities and the dollar
Gold is trading at US$1,961.20 an ounce.
Iron ore is 0.3 per cent higher at US$118.50 a tonne.
Iron ore futures are pointing to a 0.7 per cent fall.
Light crude is trading $0.17 higher at US$85.73 a barrel.
One Australian dollar is buying 63.81 US cents.