That's it from the team today, thanks for joining us.
We'll be back tomorrow to catch you up with major developments in global markets from overnight.
The men's cricket ICC World Test Championship final begins tonight too, between Australia and South Africa, so hopefully we've all built up enough personal family credits to spend the next five nights on the couch stress-free.
Until tomorrow, take care everyone.
Among the best performing stocks today were Zip Co (up 36 cents, +15.45%, to $2.69), Fletcher Building (up 28 cents, +10%, to $3.08), and Fortescue (up 54 cents, +3.45%, to $16.21).
Among the worst performing stocks were Lynas Rare Earths (down 77 cents, -8.22%, to $8.6), IDP Education (down 18 cents, -4.81%, to $3.56), and BlueScope Steel (down $1.09, -4.63%, to $22.44).
Prices current around 4:25pm AEST.
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
Trading has finished on Australia's stock market for the day, and the ASX200 index has finishing ever-so-slightly higher on today's opening, up 4.9 points (0.057%) to 8,592.1 points.
ANZ commodities strategists (Soni Kumari and Daniel Hynes) say gold’s recent rally, driven largely by trade uncertainty, is losing steam now that US-China trade negotiations are underway.
"We believe a strong catalyst would be required to push prices beyond their record high," they say.
They say the heightened global trade uncertainty has been driving gold’s rise toward USD3,500/oz, and while noise around US tariffs persists, the market will gradually become desensitized to new announcements.
"As this occurs, macroeconomic data are likely to take over as the primary catalyst," they say.
Don't verbal Phillip.
I am here to facilitate a polite brawl
Ventia (ASX: VNT) has also been awarded a new contract with NBN Co as part of nbn's program to upgrade the remaining Fibre to the Node (FTTN) network across Australia.
The contract, awarded to Ventia's subsidiary, Visionstream Australia, is expected to deliver revenue of approximately $800 million to Ventia over the next 3.5 years.
The agreement includes a 2-year extension option, at nbn's election.
Under the contract, Ventia will help roughly 175,000 premises to transition from FTTN to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, and Tasmania.
Ventia's share price is $4.84. It has also lost ground today. It has shed 8 cents (-1.72%).
But over the last six months it's up 12.67%.
Services Stream (ASX: SSM) says it has secured an agreement with NBN Co that will continue the company's support for the national broadband network's upgrade of the remaining Fibre to the Node (FFTN) footprint.
The agreement will be worth approximately $440 million over the initial term.
It has an initial 3.5 year term and includes a 2-year extension option, at nbn's election.
The agreement will continue work currently being performed by the business under its existing N2P Evolution Agreement across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, which would otherwise conclude in Q3 of 2025.
Service Stream's share price is $1.93, and today it's down one cent.
But over the past six months it's up 40 cents (26.14%).
Thanks Plain Jane. Looking at the performance of the ASX200 in the year-to-date, that's been the experience of many people.