Australian Stock Report Market Wrap Up: Local shares finish under water
Announcement posted by de2 Communications 18 Apr 2016
“It was not surprising to see the market floundering today,” said Chris Conway, Head of Research at the Australian Stock Report. “It was not surprising either that oil stocks were the hardest hit today.”
Conway said what was a surprise, however, was the magnitude of the losses - they weren't as bad as they could have been.
“Of course, European and US markets haven't yet had a chance to react to the Doha meeting outcome, so we may still see some more pain tomorrow,” Conway added.
The oilers took their lumps, with Woodside (WPL) down 1.4%, Santos (STO) tumbling 7% and Oil Search (OSH) off 4.3%.
Overall the sector lost 2.9%. Materials, collectively down 0.9%, and financials, off 0.6%, were the other major drags.
Doing their best to hold the market up were healthcare plays, with sector heavyweight CSL Limited (CSL) adding 1.8%.
Property trusts jumped 1.2% and telcos, led by a 1.7% pop in Telstra following news it has sold its stake in Chinese online auto retailer Autohome, added 1.5%.
Outside the big names, McGrath (MEA) crashed 31% on its return to trade following a shock earnings downgrade announced early this morning.
The day's best was LNG Ltd (LNG), bucking the sour trend for its sector and surging 27% on news the company had received regulatory approval for its LNG export terminal in the US.
On the day the ASX 200 lost 20 points (-0.4%) to settle at 5137 - well off the early session low of 5118.
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