Shares rise as gold stocks jump; Myer dives 26pc

The Australian sharemarket rose at noon as Wall Street reset records, led once again by blue-chip technology stocks such as Nvidia, and gold stocks rallied.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.4 per cent, or by 38.5 points, to 8849.4 at midday, with five out of the 11 sectors in the green. That’s after major US indices advanced, with the S&P 500 up to 0.4 per cent to 6693.75 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite up 0.7 per cent to 22,788.98.

On the ASX, the materials sector was the best performing. It tracked a higher gold price as the precious metal spiked to an all-time high of $US3749.27 an ounce, building on a run of five weekly gains as the US Federal Reserve cut rates and flagged further easing through to year-end.

Gold miners were thus among the top performers, with Emerald Resources adding 4.6 per cent, Ramelius 3.7 per cent, Westgold 3.6 per cent and Perseus 3.3 per cent.

The mining giants also recorded gains. BHP rose 0.7 per cent and Rio Tinto 0.7 per cent.

Overnight shares in Nvidia rose 4 per cent. The company said it would invest as much as $US100 billion ($150 billion) in OpenAI to support the building of new data centres and the infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence workloads. Apple extended its one-month surge to nearly 12 per cent with a 4.3 per cent advance. Its stock is nearing a record high as its market cap moves towards the $US4 trillion mark.

Stocks in focus

Myer dived 26 per cent after reporting that net profit slipped 30 per cent to $36.8 million, even as total sales increased 0.5 per cent on a pro forma basis to $3.6 billion for the 12 months to July 26. The company posted a statutory net loss of $211.2 million due to its acquisition of the Apparel Brands business in January. Earnings before interest and taxes declined 13.8 per cent to $140.3 million.

Telix Pharmaceuticals rallied 7 per cent after it said that the United States Centres for Medicare & Medicaid Services granted transitional pass-through payment status for its prostate cancer imaging product Gozellix.