Australian Market Modestly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is modestly lower on Monday, giving up the slight gains in the previous session, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 staying above the 7,200 level, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday, with weakness in technology and financial stocks partially offset by gains in miners and energy stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is losing 11.70 points or 0.16 percent to 7,245.00, after hitting a low of 7,235.10 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is down 17.00 points or 0.23 percent to 7,436.20. Australian stocks closed slightly higher on Friday.

Among the major miners, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals are gaining almost 1 percent each, while BHP Group is adding more than 1 percent. Mineral Resources is losing more than 1 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly higher. Woodside Energy is gaining almost 1 percent, while Santos and Origin Energy are edging up 0.2 to 0.3 percent each. Beach energy is edging down 0.2 percent.

Among tech stocks, Xero and WiseTech Global are edging down 0.4 to 0.5 percent each, while Zip is losing almost 3 percent. Appen is gaining more than 2 percent and Afterpay owner Block is flat.

Gold miners are higher. Gold Road Resources and Northern Star Resources are gaining more than 2 percent each, while Evolution Mining and Resolute Mining are adding more than 1 percent each. Newcrest Mining is up almost 1 percent after its board unanimously agreed to back US gold giant Newmont's takeover offer.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank is losing almost 1 percent, while Westpac is edging down 0.3 percent and ANZ Banking is down almost 1 percent. National Australia Bank is flat.

In other news, shares in InvoCare are surging more than 10 percent after it received a revised takeover offer from TPG Capital.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.667 on Monday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a notable recovery attempt in the latter part of the session gollowing the downturn seen in morning trading on Friday. The major averages climbed well off their worst levels of the day but still closed in the red.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 43.76 points or 0.4 percent to 12,284.74 and the S&P 500 dipped 6.54 points or 0.2 percent to 4,124.08, while the Dow edged down just 8.89 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 33,300.62.

Meanwhile, the major European markets all moved to the upside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index rose by 0.3 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index both climbed by 0.5 percent.

Crude oil prices fell Friday on the dollar's strength and worries about the outlook for energy demand. Fears of the U.S. falling into a recession and the impasse in debt ceiling talks boosted dollar's safe-haven appeal and hurt oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures fell $0.83 or 1.2 percent at $70.04 a barrel.