U.S. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other central bankers will meet at Jackson Hole later on Friday to discuss the root causes of stubbornly low inflation, slow wage growth and tepid productivity gains. U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his displeasure with the Fed's rate hikes earlier this week and investors waited to see whether Powell would respond to such criticism.
Financial stocks continued to weigh on the local bourse with Westpac leading retreat, down as much as 3% after releasing a quarterly update on its margins which have fallen over the third quarter. NIM fell from 2.17% to 2.06%; the lowest in approximately three years. Other banks were mostly lower, with National Australia Bank, ANZ Banking, and Commonwealth Bank declined in a range of 0.2-0.5%.
Shares of materials and energy companies were mixed due to fall in crude oil prices overnight. Crude oil prices eased on Thursday on worries the U.S.-China trade war could hurt global economic growth and result in a drop in demand. Crude oil futures for October delivery ended at $67.83 a barrel, down 3 cents from previous close. Base metal prices were mixed on the London Metal Exchange (LME) on Thursday. Nickel, tin and copper fell by up to 1.8% with nickel down the most. But lead, aluminium and zinc rose by up to 2.5%
Among individual stocks, Brambles rose as much as 8% after the pallet company posted a 4% lift in underlying profit to US$996.7m and announced plans to sell one of its international crate units.
Afterpay Touch (APT) rose nearly 6% after the company offered retailers a 'buy now, pay later' platform and successfully raised A$117m from investors to help fund its international expansion strategy.
Medibank (MPL) was down 1.5% after posting a below consensus FY18 profit of A$445.1m. The result was held back partly by lower returns on its investments and boosted most by its core Health Insurance division.
CURRENCY NEWS: The Australian dollar declined against greenback and other major currencies on Friday, after U.S. and Chinese officials ended two days of trade talks without any major breakthroughs. The talks between the two nations ended as their trade war escalated on Thursday after a new round of U.S. tariffs kicked in on $16 billion worth of imports from China, followed immediately by reciprocal tariffs from China. The Australian dollar dipped 0.05% to US$0.7245. It had slumped 1.4% overnight as political uncertainty mounted in Australia after several senior ministers resigned and put Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's leadership back in play.
OFFSHORE MARKET NEWS, US stock market closed lower on Thursday, as traders were reluctant to make significant moves amid renewed concerns after the U.S. imposed tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese goods, leading to retaliation by the Asian nation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 76.62 points or 0.30% to finish at 25,656.98, the NASDAQ lost 10.64 points of 0.13% to 7,878.46 and the S&P 500 fell 4.84 points or 0.17% to 2,856.98.
The major European stock markets ended down on Thursday, after the US and China applied tariffs on each other's imports. The pan-European STOXX600 index eased 0.2%. The German DAX index and the UK FTSE index both also fell by 0.2%.
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