Welcome to your five-minute recap of the trading day and how the experts saw it.
The numbers: The stock market closed at a six-week high on Tuesday after a flat start. The ASX 200 rose 0.3%, gaining 17.4 points to 6,807.3.
Wall Street began the week with uncertainty ahead of an expected 75-point rate hike on Wednesday. Credit: AP
Mining and energy stocks led the market, rising 1.6 percent and 2.8 percent respectively. Discretionary consumption fell by 1.7% and the rest of the sectors closed mostly flat.
Flight Center corrected sharply, down 5.6% to $16.6 after yesterday’s rally, and financial software company Iress fell 6.6% to $10.98 after the resignation of CEO Andrew Walsh.
However, Zip led a surge in buy-now-pay-later stocks, closing nearly 20 percent higher at $1.03.
Lifters: Zip 19.9%, Paladin Energy 8.1%, Nanosonics 6.5%
Laggards: Iress -6.6%, Flight Center -5.6%, Perseus Mining -5.3%
The downside: Strong commodity prices put the wind behind the sails of the mining and energy sectors on Tuesday to break a soft start to the week with a gain. Strong iron ore prices continued the Australian dollar’s recovery, which is trading at 69¢ after falling to a two-year low of 67¢ in mid-July.
Today brought tough news for supermarket giants on both sides of the Pacific. Woolworths today announced that the retail giant’s chair of seven years, Gordon Cairns, would step down in October. Woolworths shares fell 1.3% to $36.98.