ASX rises; Bellevue Gold plunges 22pc; MinRes rallies

The Australian sharemarket advanced on Friday after a rally in commodity stocks helped recoup some of its losses from earlier in the week.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 0.8 per cent, or by 60.1 points, to 7921.3 at the closing bell, with ten out of the 11 sectors in the green. The All Ordinaries added 0.7 per cent.

It follows a 1 per cent slump on Thursday, which was the most in six weeks, triggered by lower commodity prices and heavy selling on Wall Street. Over the week, the ASX 200 lost 0.6 per cent.

Iron ore rebound

The materials sector was among the best performers on Friday, rallying 1.4 per cent. Index heavyweight BHP added 2.2 per cent to $42.10 and Fortescue Metals rose 1 per cent to 20.35.

Katana Asset Management portfolio manager Romano Sala Tenna said Friday’s gains came down to a “bit of catch up buying”.

“I’m a little cautious about whether the next leg up in miners is about to kick off as underlying commodity prices are still trailing down,” he added.

Even so, iron ore futures on the Singapore exchange were up 2.2 per cent to $US102.15 a tonne by Friday afternoon after the steel-making ingredient dropped below $US100 overnight.

Mineral Resources also jumped 3.5 per cent to $53.67 after the mining company said it was on track to meet its output guidance for FY24, with production volumes up 9 per cent year-on-year to 269 metric tonnes.

The miner led by billionaire businessman Chris Ellison also said it had pre-sold $600 million of iron ore.

Energy stocks also finished in the green as oil edged higher for a third session sending brent above $US82 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate near $US78. Shares of Ampol rose 1.5 per cent to $33 while Santos increased 1.2 per cent to $7.74.

Magnificant Seven

On Wall Street overnight, the S&P 500 ended the session down 0.5 per cent, after staging a brief rebound earlier in the session. While money continued to be pulled from the tech sector, around 300 members of the benchmark still finished higher.

Lacklustre results from two of the Magnificent Seven – Tesla and Alphabet – had triggered the biggest sell-off in the US sharemarket since 2022 mid-week. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Apple are expected to report results next week, with Nvidia not due until later next month.

“The digression between the Magnificent Seven and the Russel 2000 has been very dramatic recently,” said Mr Sala Tenna. “We’re definitely seeing some profit taking in the Magnificent Seven, and we’re seeing some rotation into small caps.”

“As US interest rates appear to have peaked, and now they’re close to seeing some rate declines in the coming months, investors potentially may have started to put more risk on”in the small caps.

Elsewhere on the ASX, Nine shares dropped 1.1 per cent to $1.385 after publishing staff voted to strike on eve of Paris Olympics. From 11am Friday, the bulk of the workforce at The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Age walked off the job after rejecting the latest pay offer from management.

And Bellevue Gold shares plunged 21.6 per cent to $1.435 after the Western Australia based gold producer completed a $150 million institutional placement at a 15.3 per cent discount to its closing share price on Wednesday.