Local market follows overseas losses: Afternoon market insights

The Australian market dropped slightly today following losses on Wall Street, Europe and Asia.

Australian stock markets ignored global equity losses yesterday, but fell into the red an hour before the closing bell today. Industry sectors that improved included healthcare, consumer staples, information technology, telecommunication services and utilities sectors. Sectors trading down included consumer discretionary, energy, mining and resources.

The S&P/ASX200 was down 0.17% to 4336.10. The All Ordinaries Index declined 0.25% to 4420.30.

The day’s winners

Oil and gas exploration company AWE (ASX: AWE) was up 2.72% to $1.89 at 3pm. The oil and gas exploration and production company has interests in offshore and onshore oil rigs in New Zealand, Bass Strait, the Otway Basin, Western Australia and Texas.

CSL (ASX: CSL) was up 3.16 % to $36.26 at 3.20pm. The CSL Group develops and manufactures vaccines and plasma products. It has major facilities in Australia, Germany, Switzerland and the US. CSL has more than 10,000 employees in 27 countries.

The day’s losers

Leighton Holdings (ASX: LEI) was down 7.49% to $21.97 at 3pm after its profit guidance was downgraded by $254 million, indicating investors do not like surprises.

Mirabela Nickel (ASX: MBN) fell 10.71% to $0.625 at 3pm today, while Bank of Queensland (ASX: BOQ) was down 4.64% to $7.295.

Sector movers

The strongest sector was the S&P/ASX 200 Healthcare (Sector) index which was up 127.9 points to 8738.6 at 3.40pm.

The weakest sector was the S&P/ASX 200 Energy (Sector) which was down 1.26% to 14213.90.

Currency

The Australian dollar dropped on lower global equity markets. One Australian dollar was buying $US 1.0364 at 3.10pm.

Asian markets

Japan’s NIKKEI 225 was down 0.57% or 57.60 points to 10125.00.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1.11% or 231.11 points to 20654.30.

Asian financial markets followed the northern hemisphere markets down, and are on track for the first monthly loss since last November. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.7% for a third day of losses. South Korea’s Kospi Index was down 1.2%.

“With all good news being factored in, we are coming to a tougher period, and markets are vulnerable,” said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at AMP Capital Investors.

“We are starting to see data come out on the softer side of what’s expected,” he told Bloomberg.