ASX rises amid broad rally; Web Travel up 13pc

A broad rally lifted the Australian sharemarket higher on Wednesday after Wall Street closed at a record high.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 0.6 per cent, or by 47.3 points to 8406.7 at the closing bell, ten out of the 11 sectors recorded gains. The All Ordinaries added by a similar amount.

Overnight in the US, the S&P 500 reset its record high, as the market was buoyed by a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. Oil prices steadied below $US73 a barrel.

Tribeca Investment Partners portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu describes the climb in local shares as a “broad-based move”.

“The consumer stocks are higher because the companies that have hosted AGM’s, including Harvey Norman, have shown that trading has not been as worse as feared – there’s a bit more positivity back into the retailers,” Ms Liu said.

Consumer discretionary stocks were the best-performing sector, climbing 1 per cent. Harvey Norman climbed 2.3 per cent to $4.90 as executive chairman Gerry Harvey assured shareholders that the retailer was not losing market share to rival JB Hi-Fi.

Elsewhere in the sector, Web Travel jumped 13.5 per cent to $4.80 after posting an underlying half-year net profit of $52.5 million, less than two months after Webjet carved off its consumer businesses into a separate listed entity. It was the best-performing stock on the ASX 200.

The financials sector was also in the green, led by index heavyweight Commonwealth Bank adding 2 per cent to $157.57. Westpac firmed 0.6 per cent to $33.13, National Australia Bank edged up 0.1 per cent to $39.19 and ANZ rose 0.3 per cent to $31.39.

Locally, the focus was on the monthly inflation data, which held steady at 2.1 per cent in annual terms in October, while New Zealand cut its cash rate by a jumbo half a percentage point to 4.25 per cent.

Stocks in focus

Small cap City Chic Collective sank 26.7 per cent to 9¢ after a trading update at the retailer’s annual general meeting disappointed the market. CEO Phil Ryan said the company was operating within the “lower end” of its earnings and revenue targets for FY25.

HMC Capital rallied 1.5 per cent to $12.45 after the fund manager said it expects pre-tax operating earnings to hit 70¢ per share, an 89 per cent jump from its FY24 result.

Lynas rose 0.7 per cent to $6.87 even as it poured cold water on the prospect of stabilised prices for its rare earths. At the miner’s AGM, it warned that any calming of market volatility was contingent on the Chinese economy.