Evening Wrap: ASX 200 fades early gains as banks, REITs and miners reverse, Firmus prices $43.7bn IPO

In a nutshell:

• The ASX 200 closed fractionally higher, fading an early 53 pt gain as high-beta names, REITs, retailers and gold miners gave back their gains

• Firmus fixed its IPO price at $11.00 a share, valuing the company at ~$43.7bn, with demand already exceeding the ~$7.1bn base offer

• Southern Cross Electrical jumped 9.6% to a record $5.32 after Macquarie initiated at Outperform with a $5.60 target, citing a $1bn data centre pipeline

• Carl is still away for another two weeks, hang in there!

Let's dive in

• ASX 200 faded an early 53 pt gain (+0.62%) to close the session fractionally higher

• Large caps with the biggest intraday fades (% from open) include 4DMedical (-6.4%), Generation Development Group (-4.6%), Waypoint REIT (-3.8%), Bellevue Gold (-3.1%), PDI Gold (-2.9%), Lynas (-2.8%) and Charter Hall (-2.7%). Most sectors finished lower, with the selling pressure largely centred on high-beta names, REITs, retailers and gold miners

• Healthcare was the best performing sector, though this largely reflected a 0.9% bounce for CSL after the stock pulled back 4.8% over the prior two sessions. CSL entered an exclusive agreement with Swiss biotech Alentis Therapeutics to co-develop lixudebart for rare kidney and liver diseases, with an initial US$355m payment to Alentis

• Materials also faded from session highs (+0.33% close vs +0.99% high), largely reflecting a reversal among gold miners (XGD -0.95% close vs +0.75% high)

• Most commodities followed a similar pattern, with copper flat at US$6.61/lb despite trading almost 1% higher this morning. Gold was up as much as 0.49% earlier and is now down 0.1% to US$4,137/oz

• Australian 3-year yield up 2 bps to 4.90%, though price action has been wild over the past three days. Daily trading ranges have been around 11 bps, which makes it pretty unpredictable where things actually close

• Australian 10-year yield down 1 bp to 5.31%, now down 12 bps from the 28 September peak

• Overall, another dicey session where most stocks gave back early gains. It was also a quiet one, with NSW on a public holiday, and the week ahead looks fairly light with no major economic releases or central bank meetings

A few stocks of interest:

• Firmus (proposed ticker AIF) fixed its IPO price at $11.00 a share on strong strategic and global investor demand, valuing the company at ~$43.7bn (US$30.6bn). Indications already exceed the ~$7.1bn (US$5.0bn) base offer. The book opens Tuesday 6 October and closes at 12pm Friday 9 October unless accelerated

• Metrics' listed funds resumed trading, with MOT down 7.4%, MRE down 3.2% and MXT down 0.2%. The Metrics Master Income Trust (MXT) released audited FY26 accounts showing a $47.1m revaluation loss, NTA down 2% to $1.9617 and a halt to applications and redemptions across its underlying funds

• Southern Cross Electrical (SXE) was initiated at Outperform by Macquarie with a $5.60 target, citing a $1bn data centre pipeline and a path to triple data centre revenue from $120m in FY27. The stock jumped 9.6% to a record $5.32, taking year-to-date gains to 117%. The broader engineering group (so names like SKS, GNG, NWH, SRG, TEA and GNP) also finished higher, and all look very constructive, trading at or near record highs

• Koala (KOA) caught my eye the other day as a name breaking out of an IPO base. Its added another 5.0% today to a record $5.17 (vs. offer price of $3.40). Some fairly interesting numbers from the recent FY26 result, where EBITDA rose 139% to $27.9m and a net profit of $24.6m vs. current market cap of $445m (no debt and $71.2m net cash).

No major economic announcements.