Australian Market Notably Lower

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is currently trading notably lower on Monday, adding to the slight losses in the previous session, despite the broadly positive cues from Wall Street on Friday. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index is falling below the 7,800.00 level, with weakness is iron ore miners, energy and financial stocks partially offset by gains in gold miners and technology stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is losing 30.60 points or 0.39 percent to 7,791.70, after hitting a low of 7,784.90 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is down 29.70 points or 0.37 percent to 8,040.40. Australian stocks closed slightly lower on Friday.

Among the major miners, Rio Tinto and BHP Group are losing more than 1 percent each, while Mineral Resources is down more than 2 percent and Fortescue Metals is declining almost 2 percent. Oil stocks are weak. Beach energy is declining almost 2 percent, Woodside Energy is losing almost 1 percent, Santos is down more than 1 percent and Origin Energy is edging down 0.2 percent.

Among tech stocks, Afterpay owner Block and Appen are gaining more than 1 percent each, while WiseTech Global and Xero are adding almost 1 percent each. Zip is advancing almost 5 percent.

Gold miners are mostly higher. Newmont and Gold Road Resources are gaining more than 1 percent each, while Evolution Mining is adding 2.5 percent, Resolute Mining is advancing almost 4 percent and Northern Star Resources is edging up 0.5 percent.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank is losing almost 1 percent and National Australia Bank is edging down 0.4 percent, while ANZ Banking is edging up 0.4 percent Westpac is flat.

In other news, shares in Core Lithium are soaring more than 15 percent after the lithium miner reported better-than-expected production, despite an ongoing downturn in the lithium market. In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.674 on Monday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved mostly higher over the course of the trading day on Friday, with the major averages all moving to the upside after turning in a mixed performance early in the session. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 closed higher for the fourth straight session, once again reaching new record closing highs.

The major averages reached new highs for the session going into the close of trading. The Nasdaq jumped 164.46 points or 0.9 percent to 18,352.76, the S&P 500 climbed 30.17 points or 0.5 percent to 5,567.19 and the Dow rose 67.87 points or 0.2 percent to 39,375.87.

Meanwhile, the major European markets finished the day mixed. While the German DAX Index inched up by 0.1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index dipped by 0.3 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index slid by 0.5 percent.

Crude oil prices slipped on Friday, but still posted their fourth straight weekly gain amid optimism about the outlook for demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended down by $0.72 or 0.86 percent at $83.16 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained about 2 percent in the week.