Australian shares closed sharply higher on Thursday due to lower oil prices, while the Reserve Bank's deputy governor has resigned to join Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest's green hydrogen company.
The benchmark ASX 200 index rose 1.1 per cent, to 7,130. The broader All Ordinaries was also up around 1.1 per cent, to 7,410.
At 4:40pm AEDT, the Australian dollar had slipped 0.1 per cent to 73.16 US cents.
Energy, miners and utilities weighed on the share market, while tech, consumer discretionary and banks were the biggest boosts to the exchange.
Top stocks on the top 200 companies index were Paladin, up 11 per cent. Flight Centre gained 6.3 per cent, Life360 added 5.9 per cent, Appen Limited rose 5.6 per cent and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield climbed 5. per cent.
Nickel Mines Limited was again the worst performing stock, down 12.8 per cent after the company acknowledged its major shareholder and Chinese joint venture partner, Tsingshan Holding, is up for billions of dollars of losses on a short position that led to the trading halt.
Nickel prices shot up to record levels after Tsingshan Group bought large amounts of nickel to reduce its short bets on the metal, forcing the London Metal Exchange to halt trading earlier in the week.
As a result, Nickel Mines has lost more than 20 per cent so far this week, on track for its worst week in two years
Rio Tinto lost 7.8 per cent, Beach Energy Limited fell 5.6 per cent, Woodside Petroleum dropped 4.5 per cent and Mineral Resources was down 4.4 per cent.
Retailer Myer will pay a dividend for the first time since 2017 despite a 24.7 per cent drop in half-year earnings, to $32.3 million. Sales were up 8.5 per cent, to $1.52 billion.
Myer will pay a 1.5 cents per-share dividend.
Online sales are up around 48 per cent and now make up a third of sales.
It said store sales were up 15.2 per cent in the first five weeks of the second half of the new financial year.
Myer's stocks added 25 per cent on the news.
RBA deputy governor leaving for FortescueRBA deputy governor Guy Debelle announced today that he would leave the bank next Wednesday to become the chief financial officer of Fortescue Future Industries in June.
"I am honoured and privileged to have worked at the bank for the past 25 years and contributed to improving the welfare of the Australian people," he said.
Fortescue Chair and Founder Mr Forrest said: “Bringing in someone of Dr Debelle’s economic credibility goes to the heart of our vision for FFI."
"Not only are we committed to arresting climate change, we are also committed to creating economic growth, increasing jobs and growing our business profitability."
Mr Debelle will start as CFO with FFI in June.
Oil prices plummet
Just a day after the US and UK announced bans on Russian oil, prices plummeted amid reports the US was moving to find oil from other countries, such as Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.
The global benchmark, Brent crude oil, settled down 13 per cent at $US111.14. On Monday, Brent reached $US139 a barrel.
The US benchmark oil, West Texas Intermediate crude oil, tumbled more than 12.5 per cent to $US108.70. It was a big drop from its 13-year high at $US130 a barrel earlier this week.
However, in the afternoon of Asian trading hours, Brent crude was up 3.3 per cent to $110.76, and US crude oil rose 1.9 per cent t o$110.76.
Asia Pacific OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley said volatility continued to be the winner overnight.
"Particularly in the commodity space as the street engaged in its latest grasping at straws attempt to price in “peak-Ukraine.”
"No result from today’s meeting could send markets back to square one."
Equity markets were also on the up, Japan's Nikkei was up 4 per cent, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 1.2 per cent.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 2 per cent to 33,286, the S&P 500 had its best day since June 2000, up 2.5 per cent to 4,277. The Nasdaq Composite was up 3.6 per cent to 13,255.
Energy stocks fell on softer oil prices. Travel and leisure stocks, which have been hit hard recently, soared.
Director of energy futures at Mizuho, Bob Yawner, said the UAE could replace about one-seventh of the Russian oil supply.
"That's not nothing," he said. "They can probably bring about 800,000 barrels to the market very quickly, even immediately."
JPMorgan head of economic policy and research Bruce Kasman said the US could facilitate oil supply, offsetting most of the Russian shock.
"The most important immediate release valve comes from the International Energy Agency, which has already agreed to release 60 million barrels from its members’ strategic reserves, an amount that can add 1 MBD (1 million barrels a day) of supply for two months," he said.
"While they would take more time to materialise, the completion of the Iran deal and unlocking spare capacity in US shale, Venezuela, and OPEC could fully offset the Russia shock."
However, Mr Kasman said Europe would struggle to be able to offset all of the Russian gas pipeline flow planned for the rest of the year.
"What’s more, an effort to acquire imports from other sources is likely to entrench much higher wholesale gas prices in the region," he said.
"A combination of higher prices and rationing will likely be unavoidable.
"Assuming a roughly 12 per cent drop in consumption alongside a five-fold rise in price relative to 2021, our European economists estimate that this year's EU natural gas bill will rise 264 billion euros for 2022, or 1.8 per cent of EU GDP."
Despite the difficulties ahead for Europe, equity markets had their best trading session in almost two years as investors reacted to cooling commodity prices.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 4.7 per cent to 434.45, Germany’s DAX gained 7.9 per cent to 13,847, and Britain's FTSE added 3.2 per cent to 7,190.
ABC News/Reuters
