ASX dragged down by Afterpay, CSL

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed 0.42 per cent lower at 7353.5, while the All Ordinaries Index dropped 0.28 per cent to 7667.9.

OMG chief executive Ivan Tchourilov said international markets tumbled as the spectre of the Omicron variant continued to haunt the world at large.

“Valuations dipped in the US on the expectation of inflation jumping in November,” Mr Tchourilov said.

“The report won’t be released until Friday night, but that didn’t stop markets from selling off securities with inflationary exposure.

“Correspondingly, the healthcare and tech sectors were in the red.”

Buy-now-pay-later market leader Afterpay was the worst performing stock in the top 200, slumping 4.37 per cent to $95.89, while smaller rival Zip dipped 2.37 per cent to $4.95.

Ioupay jumped 6.06 per cent to 17.5 cents, but that’s still dire compared to its year-to-date closing high of 70 cents on February 15.

It’s not the only BNPL stock to cop a battering this year, with Laybuy rocketing 38.7 per cent to 21.5 cents on Friday after a heavy recent sell-off, but the company was above $1.46 in February.

In the healthcare sector, CSL was 2.09 per cent lower at $298.31, Sonic Healthcare was 1.62 per cent lower at $43.63 and Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals shed 1.55 per cent to $28.60.

IG market analyst Kyle Rodda said Omicron had been shrugged off by markets all too quickly, but agreed the US inflation numbers had caused wariness.

That was in anticipation a strong number could force more aggressive rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, with momentum stocks dropping on the marginally higher risk of tighter liquidity conditions in the future, Mr Rodda said.

Mr Tchourilov said the energy sector was trading lower in a reversal of recent trends, given that oil and gas was most often the beneficiary of a high inflation environment.

“Energy prices have dropped in the northern hemisphere: thanks to strategic reserves being released by several nations, it looks like oil and gas won’t be enjoying the inflationary spike as they did in October,” he said.

Oil Search gave up 2.42 per cent to $4.04, Santos declined 2.12 per cent to $6.48 and Beach Energy backtracked 1.65 per cent to $1.19.

ANZ slid 0.5 per cent to $27.47, Commonwealth Bank eased 0.27 per cent to $97.90, National Australia Bank backtracked 0.2 per cent to $28.63 and Westpac fell 0.8 per cent to $20.85.

Among the major miners, Rio Tinto inched three cents higher to $95.83, BHP slipped 0.6 per cent to $39.96 and Fortescue gave up 0.82 per cent to $18.10.

Fortescue announced chief executive Elizabeth Gaines is leaving the top job after nearly four years, but will remain on the board as a non-executive director.

She will lead the global search for a replacement chief executive and continue to act as Fortescue’s “global green hydrogen brand ambassador”.

Fortescue said Ms Gaines was critical to its major transition “from a pure play iron ore and future facing metals exploration group, to a vertically integrated green energy and resources company”.

Mineral sands miner Iluka Resources shot up 7.29 per cent to $9.42.

Nickel, copper and cobalt producer IGO added 2.32 per cent to $10.60 after earlier this week saying it was still in talks with Western Areas about potentially taking it over, after confirming preliminary discussions back in mid-August.

In the gold sector, Northern Star lost 1.4 per cent to $9.10 and Newcrest retreated 1.74 per cent to $23.17.

After being the worst performing stock on Thursday, printing-on-demand online marketplace Redbubble soared 10.27 per cent to $3.33.

Beacon Lighting jumped 9.85 per cent to $2.90, while Temple and Webster gained 6.95 per cent to $10.77.

Wesfarmers rose 0.5 per cent to $59.85, Qantas lost 1.38 per cent to $5.01 and Telstra firmed 0.25 per cent to $4.06.

The Aussie dollar was fetching 71.44 US cents, 54.01 British pence and 63.2 Euro cents in afternoon trade.

Originally published as Australian sharemarket dragged down by buy-now-pay-later giant Afterpay, healthcare behemoth CSL