Gold company shares spiked after the price of the yellow metal rose to a near-record high of $US2441 an ounce. Bellevue Gold rose 7.5 per cent.

The laggards

Among the losers, shares of Audinate Group tumbled 5.9 per cent, Cochlear dipped 3.2 per cent, and Strike Energy lost 2.3 per cent.

Healthcare was the worst-performing sector, finishing 0.9 per cent lower.

The lowdown

Star Entertainment and its rocketing share price have been in the headlines all day amid industry speculation about the future of the embattled casino business.

One of the interest parties is Hard Rock Hotels and Casinos – owner of The Mirage in Las Vegas, which turns over revenue of more than $US430 million ($642 million) a year. It has reportedly been trying to enter the Australian market for some time.

Rumours regarding its potential interest in Star first emerged last year after the company’s shares lost more than 60 per cent of their value.

Star said on Monday it had not received any serious proposals from any entities, including Hard Rock Hotels and Casinos, and stressed a takeover is not imminent. “At this stage, none of the approaches resulted in substantive discussions,” Star reported to the ASX in a statement.

The federal budget, released last Tuesday, continues to draw commentary from analysts. HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham ruminated on the swathe of subsidy measures and tax credits, but noted the absence of any mention of productivity.

“The word ‘productivity’ was not used once in Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ budget speech. As we wrote before the budget, a focus on productivity-enhancing policy is much needed in Australia,” said Bloxham.

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On Friday in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 134.21 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 40,003.59. It and other indexes on Wall Street have been climbing steadily, as the US economy and corporate profits have managed to hold up despite high inflation, the punishing effects of high interest rates and worries about a recession that seemed inevitable but has not arrived.

The S&P 500, the most important benchmark index for the overall market and most retirement savers, added 6.17 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 5303.27 – just 0.1 per cent short of its record set on Wednesday, and its fourth straight week of gains.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite dipped 12.35 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 16,685.97.

It was a good week for US equity markets after an economic report rekindled hopes inflation is heading in the right direction after a discouraging start to the year. That, in turn, revived hopes for the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate at least once this year.

The federal funds rate is sitting at its highest level in more than two decades and a cut would provide a boost for equities and remove some of the downward pressure on the economy. The hope is that the Fed can pull off the balancing act of slowing the economy enough through high rates to stamp out high inflation, but not so much that it causes a bad recession.

Tweet of the day

Quote of the day

“For ‘inflation hawks’, the idea that increasing public spending could lower inflation is simply absurd. But just because powerful people believe something doesn’t make it right.” That’s Richard Denniss, executive director of independent think tank the Australia Institute, on why the federal government can in fact buy an inflation reduction.

You may have missed

If you have ever wondered how your home’s energy use is likely to shift as the world races toward net-zero emissions, a lofty warehouse west of London might offer a glimpse of the future. Octopus Energy, a rapidly growing British power outfit backed by Australia’s Origin Energy, has built two full-size model houses in the Slough Trading Estate, where it is testing innovative technology and training a burgeoning workforce of engineers in how to replace old gas boilers with custom-built heat pumps instead.

with AP

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