ASX ends higher; Alan Oster to retire as NAB chief economist

The Australian sharemarket edged higher on Monday as a rally in US tech giants on Friday spilled onto the ASX.

The S&P/ASX 200 ended the day up 11.7 points to 8447.9 after climbing to within 15 points of its all-time high of 8477.1 earlier in the session.

Tech stocks were the best performing, finishing up 0.9 per cent, buoyed by a strong session on Wall Street. US tech stocks rallied after US President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary bolstered optimism that proposed tariffs would be measured. That helped to reset the S&P 500’s record high.

The ASX pared some of its gains on Monday after robust retail figures reinforced expectations of interest rates staying elevated for longer. The data showed retail sales rose 0.6 per cent month-on-month in October versus a 0.1 per cent increase in September. Consensus was for a rise of 0.4 per cent.

National Australia Bank head of market economics Tapas Strickland said the Reserve Bank of Australia was paying close attention to consumer spending, concerned there was a risk that if consumption stayed weak then rates may need to be lower.

“Today’s data should reduce that risk, given the pickup in monthly retail sales over August,” he said. “It will take a few more months of actual retail data to see whether that risk looks like it will be eventuating. But the downside risk has certainly reduced, reinforcing that the RBA should not be in a rush to cut rates given too high services inflation.”

Economists at Bank of Queensland, AMP and ANZ on Friday pushed out their forecast for the first RBA cut to kick off in May, rather than February as previously predicted.

In materials, a 5.3 per cent fall in large-cap gold miner Northern Star to $16.59 also weighed on the index. The miner has agreed to buy smaller rival De Grey Mining for $5 billion in shares. De Grey soared 29.6 per cent to $1.97. Fellow WA gold miner Gold Road Resources was up 9.4 per to $2.04.

Gains in the US dollar also hurt the price of gold, which fell 0.7 per cent to $US2635.50 an ounce. That flowed through to the rest of the sector, with West African Resources down 4 per cent to $1.46, Evolution Mining off 4 per cent to $4.86 and Newmont 3.3 per cent lower to $62.95.

Stocks to watch

GQG Partners fell 14 per cent to $2.02 after UBS downgraded the stock to “neutral” and slashed its price target by 30 per cent. The move comes as the investment business faces mounting pressure about its investment in Indian conglomerate Adani, whose billionaire founder Gautam Adani has been indicted by US prosecutors.

Investment platform Netwealth has reached $100 billion in funds under administration. The news sent the shares down 5 per cent to $29.25, though the stock has nearly doubled since the start of the year.

And IGA wholesaler Metcash climbed 2.2 per cent to $3.19. While it posted stagnating underlying profit and earnings in the six months to the end of October, it still managed to meet the market’s already lowered expectations leading into the result.