“The fact that they didn’t have the confidence to provide guidance for the next year is probably also weighing on the stock a little bit. But stocks have been reasonably defensive throughout the last six to 12 months. I wouldn’t read too much into that fall.”

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It was a good day for mining stocks, with Sandfire Resources soaring 6.7 per cent, Whitehaven Coal climbing 5.8 per cent, and IGO jumping 4 per cent.

Medibank shares were up marginally for most of the day, following the company’s annual general meeting where chief executive David Koczkar stood by the health insurer’s decision not to pay the $US10 million ($15 million) ransom to hackers. However, at market close shares were down 0.7 per cent to $2.79.

The financial sector had a day in the red with all big four banks lower, with Commonwealth Bank taking the biggest knock, down 1.8 per cent at $104.58.

Other stocks that dragged the index down included biotechnology company Imugene, which dived 9.5 per cent, and West African Resources, which dropped 7 per cent.

Copper mining company OZ Minerals’ shares have been placed in a trading halt, with BHP rumoured to be eyeing an improved takeover offer for the company. The news comes after BHP lobbed a $25-a-share bid to buy Oz Minerals in August, representing a 32.1 per cent premium to its previous closing price.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest wage price index on Wednesday morning, showing wages had grown 3.1 per cent in 12 months, up 1 per cent since September, the largest quarterly growth in more than a decade. The data will be examined by the Reserve Bank, which has lifted the official cash rate by 2.75 percentage points since May to curb inflation, ahead of its next board meeting.

On Wall Street, stocks rose overnight following more signs the punishingly high inflation in the US economy may be falling off faster than expected.

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The S&P 500 climbed 0.9 per cent, or 34.48 points, to 3991.73, though it went on another unsettling ride to get there. A flare-up of worries about the war in Ukraine caused a brief pullback in markets during the afternoon, forcing the S&P 500 to swing from an early gain of 1.8 per cent all the way to a loss of 0.1 per cent before it recovered.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average veered from a gain of 450 points to a loss of 216 before closing up 0.2 per cent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq posted a gain of 1.4 per cent.

A meeting between the presidents of the world’s two largest economies also raised hopes for an easing of US-China tension after analysts said it went better than expected. The S&P 500 touched its highest level in two months, while Treasury yields eased on hopes a slowdown in inflation could mean the Federal Reserve’s bitter, economy-crunching medicine for it could taper as well.

Tweet of the day:

Quote of the day:

“While we unreservedly apologise for the impact of the release of the data, we cannot as a community pay criminals who are likely to continue to extort us all – particularly when there is no guarantee that the criminal would ever delete the data. As I’ve said before, you cannot trust a criminal,” said Medibank chief executive David Koczkar at the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday.

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