Australian Market Extends Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is extending it early gains in mid-market moves on Wednesday, recouping the losses in the previous session, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 moving above the 8,950 level, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight, with gains across most sectors led by mining and financial stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 21.20 points or 0.24 percent to 8,956.80, after touching a high of 8,965.00 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 17.90 points or 0.19 percent to 9,225.20. Australian stocks ended modestly lower on Tuesday.

Among major miners, BHP Group is gaining more than 1 percent, Mineral Resources is surging almost 5 percent and Rio Tinto is adding almost 1 percent, while Fortescue is losing almost 1 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly higher. Woodside Energy and Santos are edging up 0.1 to 0.3 percent each, while Origin Energy is gaining almost 1 percent. Beach energy is losing almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Afterpay owner Block and Xero are edging up 0.1 to 0.5 percent each, while Zip is gaining almost 1 percent and Appen is advancing almost 4 percent. WiseTech Global is plunging more than 8 percent after it missed analysts' expectations on revenue and profit growth.

Among the big four banks, Westpac is edging up 0.4 percent and Commonwealth Bank is adding more than 1 percent, while ANZ Banking and National Australia bank are gaining almost 1 percent each.

Among gold miners, Evolution Mining is advancing almost 3 percent, Resolute Mining is up 3.5 percent, Northern Star Resources is gaining more than 1 percent and Newmont is adding 1.5 percent, while Gold Road Resources is edging down 0.2 percent.

In other news, shares in Woolworths are diving almost 14 percent after the supermarket giant slashed its final dividend by 21.1 percent and posted a 17 percent fall in net profit for the full year.

Shares in Nine Entertainment, the owner of The Australian Financial Review, are soaring almost 7 percent after saying it would pay a special dividend from the sale of its stake in property listings portal Domain to US real estate giant CoStar.

Shares in Tabcorp are skyrocketing more than 23 percent after the bookmaker swung to a net profit and reported upbeat group revenues for the full year.

Shares in Worley are jumping almost 9 percent after forecasting "moderate" growth this financial year and telling investors it would use AI to improve efficiency.

Shares in Lovisa are soaring almost 18 percent after the fashion jewellery retailer delivered upbeat financial results for the full year.

Shares in Domino's Pizza Enterprises are plunging almost 19 percent after the pizza maker reported downbeat full-year results due to heavy restructuring costs, and cut its final dividend.

In economic news, Australia's monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped 2.8 percent year-on-year in July 2025, accelerating from 1.9 percent in June and steeper than the expected 2.3 percent increase. This was the highest reading since July 2024. The annual trimmed mean inflation rose to 2.7 percent in July from 2.1 percent in June, while core inflation excluding volatile items and travel accelerated to 3.2 percent from 2.5 percent.

Total construction work in Australia rose 3.0 percent quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter of 2025, strongly recovering from a downwardly revised 0.3 percent decline in first quarter and easily exceeding market expectations of 0.7 percent growth. On an annual basis, total construction activity expanded 4.8 percent, picking up from 3.0 percent in the first quarter.

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Leading Economic Index for Australia edged up 0.1 percent month-over-month in July 2025, after being flat in the previous month. Meanwhile, the six-month annualized growth rate ticked up to 0.12 percent from 0.01 percent, pointing to sluggish momentum in the second half of 2025 and early 2026.

Westpac projects GDP growth of 1.7 percent in 2025, up slightly from 1.3 percent in 2024, with growth only expected to return to its 2.2 percent trend pace by late 2026. Westpac expects the central bank to hold rates in September before delivering another 25bps cut in November.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.649 on Wednesday.