Evening Wrap: ASX falls again led by iron ore miners, healthcare and staples buck the trend

The S&P/ASX 200 closed 105 points lower, down -1.60%.

 The pain just doesn't end hey? The local sharemarket revisits June lows as miners and energy stocks sell off. Four sectors including healthcare and staples managed to close green.

Let's get into it.

ASX 200, All Ords and All Tech intraday overview

Markets

Monday was an extremely odd session with several large cap stocks reversing early losses to close 1-2% higher. Still, losses from Materials and Energy capped any further upside at the Index level.

• 5 out of 11 sectors advanced

• Healthcare stocks headline gains with heavyweights CSL, Sonic Healthcare, Resmed and Cochlear all closing in positive territory

• Staples outperformed with Woolworths and Coles both up more than 2%

• Tech surprisingly closed 1.1% higher with broad-based gains among large cap gains

• Discretionary was another positive sector that reversed early losses, mostly thanks to a 1.8% gain from Wesfarmers

• Materials, Utilities and Energy sectors posted losses between 3-6%

• 70% of the top 200 companies declined

Announcements

• Superloop (ASX: SLC) +9.5% acquired VostroNet, a provider of wholesale Fibre-to-the-Premises access networks for multi-dwelling and broadacre developments for $35m

• Universal Store (ASX: UNI) +2.8% acquired Cheap Thrills Cycles, a designed, wholesale and retailer of casual youth fashion apparel for $50m

• Sigma Healthcare (ASX: SIG) -5.7% announced its 1H23 results with revenue up 6% to $1.84bn supported by high volume sales of rapid antigen tests 

• 29 Metals (ASX: 29M) -6.9% concluded a successful field campaign at the Redhill prospect. The activities were early-stage in nature and will be used to plan future exploration activity

• Karoon Gas (ASX: KAR) -9.4% completed the intervention of a third oil well. Total oil production at the Bauna field is now 22,000 barrels a day, towards the upper end of pre-intervention campaign expectations

• Costa Group (ASX: CGC) -14.2% announced that CEO Sean Hallahan will step down on 26 September. Non-executive director Harry Debney will step in as the interim CEO

• Syrah Resources (ASX: SYR) -18.3% said operations at its Balama Graphite Project in Mozambique have been interrupted by illegal industrial action by a small contingent of local employees 

 Quick bites 

• Pound slumps to record low against the dollar (Bloomberg)

• Italy on track to appoint its first female Prime Minister (Bloomberg)

• Biden warns Kremlin that any use nuclear weapons would have "catastrophic consequences" for Russia (Bloomberg)

• China's Communist Party reaffirms President Xi Jinping as its core (Bloomberg)

Economy

No major economic developments. It's a big night for Fed speeches though:

• Fed Collins at 12:00 am

• Fed Bostic at 2:00 am

• Fed Mester at 6:00 am

Commodities 

• Iron ore futures on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange fell -1.3%

• Copper extended its selloff, down -1.8% to US$3.28/lb

• Brent crude oil continued to fall, down -2.1% to US$84.8 a barrel

Latest news

Scans

Post market charts

I was away last Friday so we didn’t get the chance to break down some of the rather depressing price action. Although the last Evening Wrap I wrote last Wednesday was already pointing to some rather dire charts with the ASX 200 undercutting recent lows.

S&P/ASX 200: Managed to bounce off June lows. Still closed sharply lower. This is one of those "it's oversold but who knows where we will bounce" kind of moments. Bulls would hope this 6,430 level holds.

XJO chart (Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index)

S&P/ASX 200 Energy: Closed below the 200-day moving average for the first time since 6 January. It still hasn’t undercut recent lows but a selloff of that magnitude tends to kill the trend.

XEJ chart (Source: TradingView)

XEJ weekly chart (Source: TradingView)

S&P/ASX 200 Materials: Selling off towards recent lows. Also coincides with the last October/November lows (when iron ore crashed from US$220 to US$90). Still not seeing any signs of bounce for miners even though iron ore prices are holding up (on a relative basis).

XMJ chart (Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index)

S&P/ASX 200 Tech, Staples and Discretionary: All three managed to bounce around 1% today. Still, more is needed.

XIJ, XSJ and XDJ charts (Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index)