Seven said on Monday if Boral shareholders accept its unconditional offer, they will be issued SGH shares and sent payment within seven business days from the date they accepted.

Shares in Queensland renewables developer Genex Power soared 32 per cent after J-Power, one of Japan’s largest energy utilities, lobbed a $375 million bid for the company.

The big four banks, led by Westpac (up 1 per cent), also helped to lift the financials sector (up 0.3 per cent).

The laggards

On the losing end, iron ore miners were weaker, with BHP, the largest company on the ASX 200, down 1.5 per cent, while Fortescue (down 3.2 per cent) and Rio Tinto (down 1.2 per cent) also declined.

Healthcare (down 0.8 per cent) was the weakest sector with Pro Medicus losing 3.6 per cent, biotech giant CSL dropping 1 per cent and Sonic Healthcare slipping 2 per cent. Utilities (down 0.8 per cent) were weaker as Meridian Energy lost 1.6 per cent and Origin fell 1.2 per cent.

Viva Energy Group (down 3.2 per cent), Cleanaway Waste Management (down 3.1 per cent) and South32 (down 2.1 per cent) were also among the biggest large-cap decliners.

The lowdown

The Australian sharemarket failed to take off despite a 2 per cent surge in gold prices and a rally by gold companies, as economic data came in softer than expected.

The data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed businesses were running down their inventories rather than stocking up in anticipation of soft demand from consumers just as wages growth eased.

The unexpectedly large 1.7 per cent drop in inventories will wipe a full percentage point from the December quarter national accounts result, to be released on Wednesday, which was already expected to be weak because of the struggles facing households.

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“Business inventories fell by even more than we anticipated and will be a substantial drag on fourth-quarter growth,” said Westpac senior economist Andrew Hanlan.

In the US on Friday, Wall Street closed its latest winning week with more gains, pushing stocks listed there to new heights.

The S&P 500 rose 0.8 per cent a day after setting an all-time high. It’s been on a tremendous run and has climbed in 16 of the last 18 weeks because of excitement about cooling inflation and a mostly resilient US economy.

The Dow Jones added 0.2 per cent. Technology stocks led the market, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.1 per cent a day after surpassing its prior record set in 2021.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after reports on manufacturing and sentiment among US consumers came in softer than economists expected. They reinforced bets that the Federal Reserve may begin cutting interest rates in June, particularly after a report on Thursday showed a key measure of inflation behaved pretty much as expected last month.

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Dell Technologies helped drive the stock market after jumping 31.6 per cent. It reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, highlighting demand for its AI-optimised servers.

A seemingly never-ending crescendo of demand for artificial intelligence technology has helped catapult stocks higher over the last year. Dell has more than tripled in the last 12 months, while Nvidia has surged more than 260 per cent.

The mood was much more dour in the banking industry, where New York Community Bancorp tumbled 25.9 per cent. Late on Thursday, it warned investors that it found weakness in how it internally reviews loans, caused by ineffective oversight, risk assessment, and monitoring activities.

The company said it won’t be able to file its annual report in time, and it took a charge worth $US2.4 billion ($3.7 billion) against its results for the last three months of 2023. Its chief executive stepped down after 27 years with the company, effective immediately.

Much attention has been on smaller regional banks after last year’s crisis in the industry led to the collapses of several. One of them, Signature Bank, was swallowed up by NYCB, which has caused the resulting bank to face stricter oversight amid struggles for loans tied to real estate.

While NYCB faces many issues that are specific to it, the worry has been that banks across the industry face challenges from loans made for real estate projects.

Hopes for a June rate cut by the Fed built after a report showed the US manufacturing industry shrank in February for a 16th straight month. Manufacturing has been one of the weakest-performing areas of the economy, while a resilient job market and spending by US consumers have propped it up. The report from the Institute for Supply Management also said prices paid by manufacturers for raw materials rose again but at a slower pace than in January.

A separate report from the University of Michigan said sentiment among US consumers was weaker than economists expected. It slipped in February from January but held most of the gains seen in recent months. That’s important because spending by US consumers makes up the bulk of the economy.

Tweet of the day

Quote of the day

“The prices being paid by supermarket retailers for Australian-grown vegetables are not fair or sustainable, and this is making it increasingly unviable for some farming businesses to continue operating,” said the peak industry representative for vegetable growers as Australian fresh produce suppliers warned that the future of the country’s vegetable industry is in serious jeopardy and supermarkets’ “manipulative and unconscionable tactics” are sending farmers who are already at [a] tipping point over the edge.

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With AP

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