The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) made only a marginal advance on Thursday (5 December) with trading subdued ahead of next week’s Reserve Bank of Australia meeting.
The S&P/ASX 200 rose 12.30 points, or 0.15%, to 8,474.90 points by the closing bell. Six of the 11 sectors ended the session higher. Energy and materials, however, edged down 0.80% and 0.29%, respectively.
The top five movers were all gold producers. Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD) closed up 9.13% at $2.63, Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) advanced 8.53% to $2.29, Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) rose 8.05% to $6.98, West African Resources (ASX:WAF) climbed 7.95% to $1.63 and Perseus Mining (ASX:PRU) increased 6.46% to $2.80.
The expectation is the RBA will keep rates on hold and potentially start cutting rates later in 2025.
However, there has been a slight increase in the RBA Rate Indicator, which is trading at 95.675, indicating a 9% expectation of an interest rate decrease to 4.10% at the next meeting.
This is up from 3% earlier at the start of this week.
The indicator calculates a percentage probability of an RBA interest rate change based on the market determined prices in the ASX 30 Day Interbank Cash Rate Futures.
Meanwhile, bitcoin is flying high, climbing 7% to over US$103,000 ($159,990) today.
The cryptocurrency got a shot in the arm on news that US President-elect Donald Trump has decided to appoint a pro-crypto advocate to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The S&P/ASX200 is Australia’s leading share market index and contains the top 200 ASX-listed companies in terms of market capitalisation, and accounts for about 80% of the country’s equity market. The index is designed to measure the performance of the 200 largest index-eligible stocks listed on the ASX by float-adjusted market capitalisation.
It is recognised as the institutional investable benchmark in the country.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: CoinGecko & Stock
