The Australian sharemarket eked out its third straight day of gains, closing 0.1 per cent higher, up 9.2 points to 7387.1 with mining and energy stocks helping the bourse overcome fresh global concerns over rising inflation and lower growth.
The local bourse started the session by following Wall Street’s poor lead overnight, before lifting into positive territory just before noon.
All three major US bourses fell as investors digested weaker outlooks for global growth amid inflationary pressures. The S&P 500 dropped 1.2 per cent while the Dow Jones and tech-heavy NASDAQ both fell 1.3 per cent.
Rising commodity prices helped lift energy and mining stocks on Thursday. Credit:Odessa American
Wilson Asset Management senior investment analyst Shaun Weick said it had been an “interesting day” given the poor start but ultimately positive finish.
“Positioning in general continues to remain pretty defensive,” he said, pointing to the outperformance of gold and oil.
“[It was a] very commodity-heavy day, with a mix of defensives.“
The best performer of the day was AVZ Minerals, up by 7.28 per cent, followed by Whitehaven Coal, which saw a 6.51 per cent lift.
Mr Weick named JB Hi-Fi as one of the companies of the day that had caught his eye after the electronics and whitegoods merchant revealed Australian sales for the third quarter had grown by 10.5 per cent.
JB Hi-Fi’s share price finished the day up 4.34 per cent off the back of the strong results.
“I think it’s a decent reflection [that], despite the impacts of Omicron through late January, clearly trading bounced back across the retail space quite strongly in February and March,” said Mr Weick.
“It shows the consumer is still out there in Australia and willing to spend, with such a significant amount of savings built up over the course of the pandemic.”
On the other side of the spectrum, biotechnology company Telix Pharmaceuticals’ shares lost 7.42 per cent of its value, followed closely by buy-now-pay-later outfit Zip Co, which finished Thursday down 5.17 per cent.
Crown Resorts’ share price saw an incremental lift of 0.2 per cent after being able to hang onto its licence, despite an 11-month royal commission finding it was unsuitable to hold one.
“Our enquiries have revealed the Perth casino’s efforts to ensure that risk was kept to a minimum have fallen well short of what might reasonably be expected,” said a report by Lead Commissioner Neville Owen.