Australian Market Swings To Modest Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is swinging to modest gains in mid-market moves on Friday after opening in the red, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is staying above the 8,400 level, with gains in gold miners and financial stocks partially offset by weakness in iron ore miners and technology stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 12.20 points or 0.15 percent to 8,422.00, after hitting a low of 8,384.10 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 8.90 points or 0.10 percent to 8,646.70. Australian stocks closed modestly higher on Thursday.

Among major miners, Fortescue Metals is losing more than 1 percent, Rio Tinto is edging down 0.5 percent and Mineral Resources is declining almost 3 percent, while BHP Group is edging up 0.1 percent. Oil stocks are mostly lower. Woodside Energy and Santos are losing more than 1 percent each, while Beach energy is down 1.5 percent. Origin Energy is gaining almost 1 percent. Among tech stocks, Afterpay-owner Block is losing almost 3 percent, Xero is slipping more than 1 percent, Zip is declining almost 2 percent, WiseTech Global is down more than 2 percent and Appen is sliding almost 6 percent.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac are adding almost 1 percent, while ANZ Banking is edging up 0.3 percent.

Gold miners are mostly higher. Gold Road Resources is gaining more than 1 percent and Evolution Mining is edging up 0.2 percent, while Resolute Mining and Northern Star Resources are adding almost 2 percent each. Newmont is edging down 0.4 percent.

In other news, shares in HealthCo Healthcare & Wellness REIT are jumping almost 11 percent after striking an agreement with Healthscope and its receivers to partially defer rental payments.

In economic news, Australian retail sales unexpectedly fell 0.1 percent in April 2025, missing market expectations for a 0.3 percent rise. This marked the first decline in retail turnover since December.

Preliminary estimates also showed that seasonally adjusted number of total dwellings approved in Australia unexpectedly shrank by 5.7 percent month-over-month to an eight-month low of 14,633 units in April 2025. It was also lower than the downwardly revised 7.1 percent fall in the previous month, marking the third consecutive monthly decline and missing market forecasts of 3.1 percent growth.

Meanwhile, private house approvals in Australia increased by 3.1 percent month-over-month to a seven-month high of 9,349 units in April 2025, recovering sharply from a downwardly revised 1.9 percent drop in March, preliminary estimates showed.

Australia's private sector credit increased by 0.7 percent month-over-month in April 2025, following a 0.5 percent growth in each of the previous three months, surpassing market expectations of a 0.5 percent rise. This marked the highest monthly growth since September 2022.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.642 on Friday.