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• Aug 12, 2020 | 06:48 PM | AEST

  Market Close Commentary; 12 August 2020

  After some initial gains, the entire trading session remained in the red zone, and finally, the market ended in the red zone. The benchmark index S&P/ASX200 ended at 6132.0 and was down by 0.11 per cent as compared to yesterday's closure of 6138.6.

  Despite the strict measures by the government, the virus crisis continues to trouble Australia. Today, Victoria declared 410 new cases and 21 deaths.

  Yesterday, the US stock market also had a gloomy trading session with Nasdaq Composite dipped by 1.69 per cent, Dow Industrials was down by 0.38 per cent, while the S&P 500 lost 0.80 per cent. 

  If we look at the commodity section at AEST 03:59 PM, the Australian Dollar was down by 0.20 per cent; it was trading at AUD 0.7128. Gold gained by 1.36 per cent; it was trading at USD 1937.18. While Crude oil surged by 0.99 per cent and was trading at USD 42.02 a barrel.

  The stocks that performed strongly during today's trading session are:  

  • Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (ASX:URW) which traded at AUD 3.97, and was up by 7.59 per cent.
  • Virgin Money UK PLC (ASX:VUK)  remained the second top gainer. It traded at AUD 1.75 and was up by 5.74 per cent. 

  The worst-performing stocks for today's session are:

  • SEEK Limited (ASX:SEK)  traded at AUD 19.58 and was dipped by 8.63 per cent.
  • Mesoblast Limited (ASX:MSB)  traded at AUD 3.070 and was down by 8.63 per cent.

  Let’s see the graph for the five top performing and least performing stocks for today's market: