The Australian sharemarket closed slightly higher on Wednesda, with energy stocks surging amid recent high oil prices.
The ASX 200 index ended 0.1% higher at 8,820.60 points as six of the 11 sectors rose.
Energy stocks led gains, with the ASX’s energy index up 2.4%. Oil prices reached their highest level in over two months earlier today amid ongoing anti-government protests in Iran, but dropped during Asian trading.
Shares in Karoon Energy climbed 7.1%. Beach Energy rose 5.2%, Woodside Energy increased 2.9% and Santos was up 2.6%.
Banking and financial services stocks continued to slide on Wall Street after U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for a one-year 10% cap on credit card interest rates. On the ASX, payment services company Block shed 3.2%, but financial technology provider Zip Co partly reversed yesterday’s losses and rose 0.6.
Neuren Pharmaceuticals was up 6.5% after it said sales of its genetic disorder medication Daybue would reach roughly US$700 million in 2028.
Job vacancies fell by 0.2% in the three months to November, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said today. Seven of 18 industries saw job vacancies decline, led by the education and training sector with a 15.5% drop.
“Although the level of job vacancies was stable over last year, the unemployment rate had been gradually ticking higher,” Westpac economist Ryan Wells wrote.
“As a result, the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio – a key metric that provides a better perspective on the degree of ‘slack’ in the labour market – has continued to moderate, from 0.58 in Nov-24 to 0.49 in Nov-25, confirming that the labour market is indeed gradually softening.”
Two-year bond yields were flat at 4.026%, with 10-year yields also unchanged at 4.708%.
