Thursday’s announcement by PM Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison of a royal commission into Australia’s banking sector, impacted the financial sector negatively. The losses could have been far more severe as the big four banks were all lower in the realm of 1.5-2.5% at one stage and dragged the main index nearly 1% lower. National Australia Bank (NAB) managed to end the day mostly flat while Commonwealth Bank (CBA) was the worst affected sliding 1.9% with ANZ Bank (ANZ) down 1.1%. Regional banks outperformed with Bendigo & Adelaide (BEN) lifting 1.75% and Bank of Queensland rising 1.2%.
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The market finished the week at 6,074.60, up 11.46 points from the previous week's close of 6,063.14. On Friday's trade the All Ordinaries finished up 17.404.36 points or 0.29 per cent.
On Tuesday, Mining giant, BHP was the main weight on the market with the miner slipping 2% to $27.38. This is despite the company planning to improve productivity gains by $2.2 billion for its Australian operations over the next two years while also looking to increase local iron ore production. Overnight losses in a majority of commodities didn’t help materials sector with other major miners Rio Tinto (RIO) and Fortescue Metals (FMG) both falling by 0.8% and 3% each.
Telstra (TLS) shares were another drag on the market with the telco continuing its slide and dropping 1.7% to $3.40. This follows from the announcement that a delay in the NBN rollout will affect payments received by the telco. CEO Andy Penn also spoke at a business conference in Sydney about the effects of the anticipated 5G mobile network will have on fixed broadband networks like the NBN. TLS ended the week on $3.41.
On Wednesday, the local market benefitted from a strong global lead despite another North Korean Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch. Most major miners also made decent gains despite a reversal in commodity prices overnight with Fortescue Metals (FMG) one of the biggest winners jumping 1.3%.
