Australian Market Extends Early Losses In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is extending its early losses in mid-market trading on Monday, extending the losses in the previous session, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index is falling below the 8,950.00 mark, with weakness in iron ore miners, energy, technology and financial stocks. Gold miners are the only bright spot.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is losing 55.70 points or 0.62 percent to 8,917.40, after hitting a low of 8,908.10 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is down 57.20 points or 0.62 percent to 9,185.80. Australian stocks closed slightly lower on Friday.

Among the major miners, Fortescue is declining more than 5 percent, Rio Tinto is losing almost 2 percent, BHP Group is down more than 1 percent and Mineral Resources is slipping almost 3 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly lower. Santos and Origin Energy are edging down 0.2 to 0.4 percent each, while Woodside Energy is losing more than 1 percent. Beach energy is edging up 0.4 percent.

Among tech stocks, Afterpay owner Block is declining more than 1 percent, WiseTech Global is losing more than 3 percent and Xero is down almost 3 percent, while Zip is gaining more than 2 percent and Appen is adding almost 1 percent.

Gold miners are mostly higher. Northern Star Resources is surging more than 4 percent, Gold Road Resources is up almost 1 percent, Evolution Mining is advancing almost 4 percent, Newmont is adding almost 2 percent and Resolute Mining is jumping more than 5 percent.

Among the big four banks, Westpac, National Australia Bank and Commonwealth Bank are losing almost 1 percent, while ANZ Banking is edging down 0.1 percent.

In other news, shares in RPMGlobal are skyrocketing more than 23 percent after it agreed to an exclusivity period with Caterpillar following receipt of a non-binding proposal to acquire all shares and options for $5 per share.

In economic news, the manufacturing sector in Australia continued to expand in August, and at a faster rate, the latest survey from S&P Global revealed on Monday with a manufacturing PMI score of 53.0. That's up from 51.3 in July and it moves further above the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.655 on Monday.