Staff writers
Updated ,first published
The Australian sharemarket has ended the week lower as uncertainty over the war in the Middle East continues to cast a shadow over markets.
The S&P/ASX 200 edged down 6.9 points to close at 8786.50 on Friday, with five of 11 industry sectors in negative territory, capping off a week in which the market has lost ground. Overnight, US stocks pulled back from record highs following mixed profit reports from Tesla and other big companies.
Oil prices, meanwhile, rose on worries about what will happen next in the war with Iran. A ceasefire is still in place between the United States and Iran, but oil tankers in the Persian Gulf aren’t able to get through the narrow waterway off Iran’s coast and deliver crude to customers. The price for a barrel of Brent crude to be delivered in June rose on Thursday night and was trading above US$105 a barrel on Friday afternoon.
Most mining stocks declined, with Fortescue losing 5.7 per cent after it released its quarterly production report. The company said the volume of total ore shipped fell 4 per cent compared to the December quarter to 48.4 wet metric tonnes, but it was a 5 per cent increase on the corresponding period in 2025. BHP edged up 0.1 per cent, while Rio Tinto lost 0.2 per cent. Gold miners lost more ground, with Northern Star falling 3.5 per cent and Evolution Mining shedding 2.2 per cent.
Financial stocks were mixed, with Westpac losing 0.3 per cent and National Australia Bank falling 0.2 per cent, while Commonwealth Bank rose 0.6 per cent, and ANZ Bank gained 0.3 per cent.
Energy stocks were boosted by strengthening oil prices. Woodside Energy added 2.6 per cent and Santos rose 1 per cent. Ampol gained 2.1 per cent, while fellow refiner Viva Energy climbed 2.1 per cent.
Tech stocks had a mixed session, with WiseTech closing 0.1 per cent higher and Xero gaining 0.3 per cent, while TechnologyOne fell 2.3 per cent.
The Australian dollar was trading at US71.29¢ at 5.15pm AEST.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.4 per cent and halted a weeks-long rally that had erased all its losses because of the war and then carried it to all-time highs. The Dow Jones dipped 179 points, or 0.4 per cent, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.9 per cent from its own record.
Tesla helped drag the market lower after sinking 3.6 per cent, even though it reported better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors focused instead on a big jump in Tesla’s forecast for spending this year, as it builds factories to make robots and other products.
“You should expect to see a very significant increase in capital expenditures,” Elon Musk told investors late on Wednesday, “but I think well justified for a substantially increased future revenue stream.”
Tech giants Meta (down 2.3 per cent) and Microsoft (down 4 per cent) have both taken drastic actions to trim their workforces in an effort to streamline their operations and offset heavy spending on artificial intelligence.
Meta told personnel in an internal memo that it planned to cut 10 per cent of workers, or roughly 8000 employees, starting on May 20. The social media company also said it wouldn’t fill 6000 open roles. Earlier in the day, Microsoft issued its own memo offering voluntary buyouts to around 8750 of its US employees.
Paramount Skydance fell 5.7 per cent after Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approved selling the business to Paramount. Warner Bros. Discovery slipped 0.7 per cent.
Shareholders also voted to reject a pay package for chief executive officer David Zaslav.
In the oil market, prices leapt as uncertainty built about what will happen with the Strait of Hormuz.
The US military on Thursday seized another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, a day after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards took control of two vessels in the strait. President Donald Trump also said Thursday he ordered the US military to “shoot and kill” Iranian boats that deploy mines to gum up traffic in the strait.
On the losing end of Wall Street was IBM, which sank 8.3 per cent despite reporting better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. Investors focused on potentially discouraging numbers underneath the surface, including decelerating growth in trends for its software business.
Texas Instruments helped limit Wall Street’s losses after breezing past analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter. CEO Haviv Ilan said the semiconductor company is benefiting from growth led by industrial and data centre customers, and its 19.4 per cent leap was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury erased an early dip and rose to 4.32 per cent from 4.3 per cent late on Wednesday as oil prices accelerated.
A report in the morning said slightly more US workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, but the number is still at a historically healthy level. A separate, preliminary report on US business output from S&P Global also suggested growth is improving a bit from its near-stagnation seen in March.
