Australian stocks fell 1 percent on Wednesday, extending losses to a second straight session as travel stocks tumbled after a new COVID-19 case in New Zealand sparked concerns about a pause in the quarantine-free Trans-Tasman trip.
The S & P / ASX 200 index fell 0.7% to 6,968.1 by 0030 GMT. It fell as much as 1%, marking its worst daily decline in about five weeks.
A new case of the novel coronavirus discovered at Auckland Airport comes just a day after the country opened a travel bubble with Australia.
This resulted in a decline in travel stocks listed on the ASX. Qantas Airways was down 2.8% and Sydney Airport Holdings was down 1.3%. Flight Center Travel and Helloworld Travel lose about 2% and 1.5% respectively.
In other markets, the Japanese Nikkei fell 1.56% to 28,631.87. The S&P 500 E-Minis Futures fell 0.13% while all three major US indices closed lower overnight.
In Australia, Corporate Travel Management were the highest percentage gains in the benchmark with an increase of 4.52%, followed by IDP Education with an increase of 2.92% and Hub24 with an increase of 2.58%.
Heavyweight miners fell 1.5%. Lithium miners Galaxy Resources and Orocobre were the biggest losers on the index, falling nearly 6% each.
Iron ore giant BHP Group fell more than 2% after seeing a slight decline in its production in the third quarter. For the full year, however, iron ore production is expected at the upper end of the forecast range.
The energy index fell 2.1%, led by Beach Energy down 2.8% and Ampol down 1.3%. Oil prices fell from their monthly high on fears that the world’s third largest oil importer, India, might impose new restrictions.
In New Zealand, the benchmark index S & P / NZX 50 fell 0.4% to 12,628.8.
The losers with the highest percentage of the benchmark are Auckland International Airport with a loss of 2%, followed by the Australian and New Zealand banking group with a loss of 1.7% and Meridian Energy with a loss of 1.6%. (Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)
This story was published by a wire agency feed with no changes to the text. Only the heading was changed.
Subscribe to something As good as new newsletter
* * Please enter a valid email address
* * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.
