Australia’s sharemarket has avoided most of the global calamity to trade flat on Tuesday, as a Chinese competitor to global chipmakers and a hawkish Reserve Bank weighed on traders sentiment.
The benchmark ASX 200 traded virtually flat, up just 0.70 points or 0.01 per cent to 8783.90, while the broader All Ordinaries fell 15.20 points or 0.17 per cent to 8921.50.
Meanwhile, the Australian dollar gained against the greenback, buying 69.62 US cents.
On a mixed day of trading, seven of the 11 sectors finished higher, but a plunge in technology and mining stocks limited the ASX’s gains.
The technology sector sank 4.37 per cent, led by sector heavyweight Codan which dropped 6.04 per cent to $63.28, while WiseTech fell 2.82 per cent to $33.11.
Falling commodity prices - including in copper and aluminium - over AI spending fears also hit the ASX 200, with diversified miner BHP down 1.84 per cent to $61.28, while Rio Tinto dropped 2.40 per cent to $161.00.
The sell-off came as Chinese company CXMT announced an advancement in memory technology, adding to competition and further pricing pressure among the chip markers.
This had a ripple effect across Asia, with South Korea’s chip-heavy KOSPI Index down more than 6 per cent to its lowest level since July.
Helping to offset the falls in technology and mining shares were strong gains out of the major four banks.
Commonwealth Bank rallied 2.32 per cent to $154.50, National Australia Bank climbed 1.87 per cent to $39.25, Westpac Jumped 1.53 per cent to $35.16 and ANZ closed up 1.27 per cent to $38.39.
Also hitting the local bourse was a hawkish Reserve Bank of Australia, with its latest minutes of monetary policy showing the bank will do what it takes to get rid of inflation, even at the expense of the broader economy.
Commonwealth Bank head of Australian economics Belinda Allen said the minutes made it clear that the RBA had turned its attention to the fight against inflation, as the central bank moved away from its previous plan of protecting the gains in the labour market.
“A shift in the RBA’s tolerance for slower growth and employment in an environment of persistent adverse supply shocks was an explicit inclusion in the minutes, as was the rising neutral rate,” she said.
“The minutes today were decisively hawkish, as you would expect given the unanimous decision to hike the cash rate.
“The discussions at the board meeting were heavily weighted to inflation and the upside risks to the inflation forecast. There was little attention given to downside risks to growth.”
Shares in micro investment platform Raiz plunged 32.00 per cent to $0.34 after it emerged from a trading halt on October 9 and reported potentially material tax liabilities dating back to 2015.
The business said it has proactively notified the tax office and ASIC and is co-operating with them.
Domino’s Pizza Enterprise shares traded flat at $21.90 after the Australian and New Zealand chief executive left just nine months into the job. Group chief executive Andrew Gregory will take over the role.
PointsBet shares fell 1.81 per cent to $0.82 after it reported a 16 per cent fall in first half revenue to $113m, with normalised EBITDA expected to be negative $6m to $8m.
Due to being owned by Mixi and following Japanese accounting standards, the reporting period was between April 1 and September 30 2026.