‘Not typical’: Investors handed a mixed bag as gold, mining slump on ASX 200

Early market gains on the Australian Securities Exchange were erased as gold and mining stocks fell on the penultimate trading day of the year.

The S&P/ASX 200 fell 8.6 points, or 0.10 per cent, to 8717.10 at the close on Tuesday, just shy of Monday evening’s close and marking the market’s third straight decline.

The Australian dollar is at 0.67 US cents.

Tuesday marks the last trading day of the year before wrapping up early on Wednesday.

In addition to Wall Street, which will be closed on Thursday, markets will also remain closed on New Year’s Eve.

Industrial sectors faced a mixed bag on Tuesday; Six out of 11 sectors were in red.

The best-performing sector was energy, up 0.91 percent, and consumer discretionary, up 0.62 percent, with the sector completing a successful recovery after its recent decline.

Other sectors in the green zone were finance and basic consumer goods, which both increased by 0.38 percent, followed by telecommunications with an increase of 0.37 percent.

Commonwealth Bank increased by 0.5 percent to $161.29, and National Australia Bank increased by 0.42 percent to $42.34.

Westpac also rose 0.2 per cent to $39.03 and ANZ rose 0.1 per cent to $36.03.

Summerset Group led the ASX 200 index, rising 2.94 percent to $25.69 on Tuesday, followed by furniture retailer Temple & Webster Group Pty Ltd, which rose 1.96 percent to $13.75.

Meanwhile, the underperforming stocks belonged to Silex Systems, which had an early rally on Tuesday, falling just 4.77 percent to $8.31; It was followed by Liontown Resources, which fell 4.92 percent to $1.59, and Newmont Corporation DRC, which fell 4.15 percent to $149.15.

Volume outliers included Perimeter Centers, which rose 0.78 percent to $2.58.

Gema Dale, director of SMSF and investor behavior at NAB, told NewsWire the figures were “typical for this time of year”.

“It’s a very quiet time of year, so volumes are really soft to say the least,” he said.

However, while the precious materials index decreased by 0.97 percent, the situation was not very promising for the market.

After falling badly on Monday afternoon, gold managed to retreat 0.7 percent as markets closed on Tuesday.

“(Gold and silver) have had a phenomenal rise,” Ms. Dale said.

“Gold increased by over 50 percent in 12 months, and silver increased by 150 percent.

“He tends to fall behind the six quite dramatically and then…he has an accelerated run later in the piece, so he runs really hard.”

He said last month’s nearly 30 percent increase “should not have happened.”

“(This) is definitely not typical,” he said.

“So when you see really aggressive price movements, you will also see some kind of sharp downward movements.”

While the ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine increased the fear of disruption in oil and natural gas supply, Santos increased by 1.7 percent to $ 6.11, Beach Energy increased by 0.9 percent to $ 1.15 and Woodside increased by 1.3 percent to $ 23.37.

The mining industry also suffered some losses; Evolution Mining lost 3.4 per cent to $12.56, St Barbara fell 5 per cent to 57 cents per share and Northern Star lost 1.98 per cent to $26.28.