The Australian sharemarket staged a strong turnaround on Monday after a torrid fortnight, with technology and healthcare companies leading the gains despite US stocks closing lower on Friday.
South32 was the biggest large-cap gainer, followed by online employment marketplace Seek and Qantas .Mining heavyweights BHP , Fortescue and Rio Tinto were all stronger, supporting the benchmark index.The energy sector weighed on the market with a decline of 1.5 per cent. Woodside Energy shares tumbled 2.6 per cent and Santos 1.2 per cent, while coal miners Yancoal and Whitehaven also lost ground. Shares in utilities companies Mercury NZ and Meridian Energy were weaker.Capital.
The Nasdaq Composite Index, weighed down by a number of tech market heavyweights, sank 319.49 points, or 2 per cent, to 15,282.01. Shares in artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia slumped 10 per cent. Because of its huge size it was the biggest drag on the S&P 500’s performance.Bloomberg Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, expects US inflation to moderate as households that have become “hypersensitive to price hikes” by businesses begin slowing their spending.