The Australian sharemarket has seesawed as investors took stock of a potential US federal government shutdown in the coming hours.<\/p>\n
The S&P\/ASX 200 Index rose as much as 0.2 per cent in early trading on Wednesday but had fallen 34.8 points, or 0.4 per cent, as of 1.57pm AEST, with losses in energy, consumer discretionary, and the big four banks offsetting gains in healthcare and utilities as six of the 11 sectors were in the red.<\/p>\n
US equity-index futures edged lower in early Asian trading, with the government in Washington only hours away from a potential shutdown. Investor were focused on President Donald Trump, who has threatened to oust federal workers and cut programs and there are fears that a shutdown could delay key economic reports used to gauge the Federal Reserve\u2019s path on interest-rate cuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cUS Congressional leaders made no progress to avoid a government shutdown, which now appears likely,\u201d said IG market analyst Tony Sycamore. \u201cThe key unknowns are how long a shutdown would last and whether Friday night\u2019s non-farm payrolls report will be delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the ASX, index heavyweight BHP<\/strong> fell 1.8 per cent amid conflicting reports that China has temporarily banned purchases of the mining giant\u2019s iron ore shipped from the Pilbara, as part of hardball negotiations over pricing for the next 12 months. Shares in BHP also fell in US and UK overnight. But fellow iron ore giant Rio Tinto<\/strong> was flat.<\/p>\n Lithium stocks were sold off in early trading following reports that Chinese authorities have approved reserve reports from two major lithium producers operating in the mining hub of Yichun. PLS<\/strong> fell 6.8 per cent, Mineral Resources<\/strong> 3.9 per cent, Liontown<\/strong> Resources<\/strong> 10.2 per cent and IGO<\/strong> 3.5 per cent.<\/p>\n Gold hit another record, extending a four-day rally, as traders braced for a possible US government shutdown that could support demand for haven assets. Bullion rose to touch $US3,875.53 an ounce, above the peak set on Tuesday, as investors tracked the deadlock in Washington.<\/p>\n Genesis Minerals<\/strong> rose 1.6 per cent, but other gold miners including Newmont<\/strong>, Northern Star, <\/strong>Evolution Mining<\/strong> and Capricorn Metals<\/strong> were flat.<\/p>\n Westgold Resources<\/strong>, which on Wednesday announced plans to increase its annual gold production from 326,000 ounces in FY25 to more than 470,000 ounces by FY28, jumped 11.3 per cent.<\/p>\n Stocks on the move<\/p>\n DroneShield<\/strong> leapt another 15.5 per cent on Wednesday and has now jumped more than 30 per cent for the week. \u201cInvestors [have] piled into the counter-drone technology specialist amid recent military contract wins and discussion of the EU\u2019s \u2018Drone Wall\u2019 initiative to counter Russian drone threats along its eastern borders,\u201d said IG\u2019s Sycamore.<\/p>\n Eagers<\/strong> entered a trading halt before announcing it would buy 65 per cent of CanadaOne, a privately owned dealership business, in a bid to expand into new markets.<\/p>\n Southern Cross Media <\/strong>fell 7.3 per cent as the board said it was confident it could thwart an attempt to change its constitution to prevent it issuing more than 25 per cent of its shares without shareholder approval.<\/p>\n Sandon Capital<\/strong>, which owns 11.3 per cent of Southern Cross, sent the board a request to amend the company\u2019s constitution on Tuesday night, prompted by the audio company announcing it would issue almost 100 per cent of its shares in a takeover of Kerry Stokes\u2019 media company Seven West Media<\/strong>, which fell 2 per cent in early trading.<\/p>\n Bravura Solutions<\/strong> rocketed 19.2 per cent after upgrading its earnings guidance for FY26.<\/p>\n And Austal<\/strong> shares jumped 3.8 per cent after it reached an agreement with the US navy over its towing, salvage and rescue ship program, currently under construction in Alabama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian sharemarket has seesawed as investors took stock of a potential US federal government shutdown in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[79,18,19,17,188],"class_list":{"0":"post-96150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-markets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}