ASX 200 opens lower; Utilities, Industrials lead losses

Highlights:

• ASX 200 benchmark index was 0.22% lower at 10:30 AM AEST today (8 August).
• The market has been taking cues from the Wall Street that ended on a rather mixed note on Friday.
• While Utilities, Industrials and Consumer Discretionary were weak, Materials and A-REIT sectors were buzzing in green zone as of 10:30 AM AEST.

The S&P/ASX200 was 15.10 points or 0.22% lower at  7,000.50 points at 10:30 AM AEST on Monday (August 8). The Australian stock market has been tracking the Wall Street that posted mixed sentiments on Friday (August 5) after a stronger than expected US jobs report.

Key pointers from Market Open

• The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index opened a tad lower today, 0.22% to 7,000.50 points.
• The bottom performing stocks in this index were Novonix Limited and Megaport Limited, down 4.87% and 4.48% respectively.
• Over the last five days, the index is more or less unchanged, but is down 5.97% on year-to-date basis.
• Sectors recorded mixed openings as 2 out of 11 were higher.
• Materials was the best performing sector, gaining 0.22%, followed by A-REIT, up by 0.01% as of 10:30 AM AEST.
• Utilities was 0.63% down, Industrials was 0.32% lower and Consumer Discretionary was 0.20% lower.

Global equity Indices

The S&P 500 closed a tad weak followed by advancing Treasury yields and rising dollar on Friday. The much robust US July employment report figures were more than expected thereby increasing the likelihood of a continued monetary tightening from the Federal Reserve.

Wall Street closed on rather a mixed note as Nasdaq Composite ended 0.5% to 12,657.56; Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.23% to 32,803.47; the S&P 500 shed off 0.16% to 4,145.19.

Benchmark US Treasury yields and prices of oil gained considerably on the back of stronger-than-expected payrolls figures that in a way confirmed that so far the economy is not heading towards recession. This phenomenon raised the probability of much more aggressive interest rate increases in September.

As per the employment report shared by the US Labour Department, the US economy has added 528,000 new jobs in the month of July. This is more than double the 250,000 expected. Also, the report revealed that the participation rate was a little lower.

Stocks in European share markets fell after the US jobs report as the pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.76%.

Benchmark US Treasury 10-year yield notes fell to 2.8287%. The dollar index gained 0.84%, Euro lost 0.63%, Japanese yen shed off 1.57%.

Commodities:

As of 7 August, 20:29 PM AEST, Crude Oil WTI was quoted at US$88.27/bbl while Brent was at US$94.13/bbl.

Gold was at US$1787.65 an ounce at 20:30 PM AEST on 7 August.