End of Day Report – Thursday 23 May: BHP Tumbles | Defensives Find Friends

 The ASX 200 falls 36 points to 7812 (0.5%) off the session lows as defensives rallied hard. NASDAQ futures improved helped by Nvidia results a positive. Healthcare and supermarkets did well. CSL up 1.4% with RMD rallying 1.0% and COH up 1.6%. WOW and COL also bucking the trend with WES continuing to fall. TLS managed a 1.2% rally after the recent drubbing. BXB put on 1.0% and SVW up 1.0%. Utilities doing ok, ORG up 1.9% on the power station news, and Tech better led by XRO with some good results rallying 8.7%. The All-Tech Index up 0.9%. In the banks, a little sloppy today The Big Four off around 1% and the Basket down to $210.38 (0.8%). Insurers better with QBE up 1.1% but MQG down 1.0%. REITS dipped with SCG off 0.9% and GPT down 1.1%. Resources were the problem today, BHP dropped 2.9% on its third and ‘final’ bid for Anglo being 9% higher and rejected again. RIO was dumped down 2.0% and FMG off 1.1%. Lithium and base metal stocks fell hard. Uranium was smacked down, PDN down 5.0% with BOE off 5.3%. PLS fell 1.5% and gold miners also on the seller’s lists. NST down 3.3% and NEM off 3.8%. AWC had a nasty day down 3.3%. Oil and gas unchanged. In corporate news, NUF sank 7.1% on falling profits and TRS fell 5.2% on a profit warning. NEU in a trading halt pending news on a drug trial. Nothing on the economic front today. Asian markets mixed with Japan up 0.6%. China down 1.3% and HK off 1.7%. 10-year yields steady at 4.26%.

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