The Australian share market finished session lower on Wednesday, 23 June 2021, giving up some of the strong gains of the previous session, as investors opted to book profit amid weaker than expected manufacturing and services PMI data, financial year end portfolio shuffle, and the worsening COVID outbreak in Sydney. At closing bell, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 declined 43.70 points, or 0.6%, to 7,298.50. The broader All Ordinaries decreased 40.63 points, or 0.54%, to 7,552.10.
Total 9 of 11 sectors ended lower along with the S&P/ASX 200 Index. healthcare was the worst performing sector, falling 1.36%, followed by energy (down 1.23%) utilities (down 1.2%), industrials (down 1.18%), financials (down 1.11%), consumer staples (down 0.94%), consumer discretionary (down 0.94%), and real estate (down 0.89%) sectors, while information technology was the best performing sector (up 1.1%) and materials (up 0.81%) sectors.
The best performing stocks in the S&P/ASX200 were Washington H Soul Pattinson (up 8.46%), ZIP Co (up 6.44%), Boral (up 4.53%), Uniti Group (up 3.6%), and Appen (up 3.27%), while the worst performing stocks were Redbubble (down 6.9%), Pro Medicus (down 5.27%), Flight Centre Travel Group (down 3.52%), Invocare (down 3.11%), and Mesoblast (down 3.1%).
Travel related stocks were lower as a COVID outbreak in Sydney attracted new interstate travel restrictions. Flight Centre fell 3.5 percent, Webjet fell 2.3%, Sydney Airport fell 2.2%.
Materials and resources stocks were higher, with BHP up 1%, Rio Tinto up 0.7%, and Fortescue up 0.5%.
ECONOMIC NEWS: Australia Manufacturing Growth Slows In June- Australia manufacturing sector continued to expand in June with a manufacturing PMI score of 58.4, the latest survey from Markit Economics revealed on Wednesday. That's down from 60.4 in May, although it remains well above the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction. The survey also showed that the services PMI fell to 56.0 from 58.0 in June and the composite index slipped to 56.1 from 58.0 a month earlier.
CURRENCY NEWS: The Australian dollar was at $0.7543, staying above the $0.752 level that it has traded around for much of the trading week so far.
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