Australia shares end marginally lower on tech losses, await corporate earnings

Australian shares ended marginally lower on Thursday as gains among gold stocks were pared by losses among tech and industrial stocks, and as investors looked forward to important corporate earnings results slated for next week.

The S&P/ASX 200 index closed down 0.1 per cent at 6,850.1 points.

Earnings reports from a number of Australian heavyweights, including BHP Group, Rio Tinto and National Australia Bank, are scheduled for release next week.


Domestic gold stocks jumped 1.7 per cent after the country's top independent gold producer Newcrest Mining said its underlying half-year profit had nearly doubled.

Shares of Newcrest ended the session 4 per cent higher, while its smaller peers De Grey Mining and Northern Star rose 4.1 per cent and 1.7 per cent, respectively.

Mining stocks were also higher, with global miners Rio Tinto and BHP Group gaining 1.1 per cent and 0.9 per cent, respectively.

Tech stocks dropped 2.1 per cent, mirroring their peers on Wall Street which slipped from record levels in the last trading session.

Buy-now-pay-later company Afterpay was down 2.3 per cent, while machine learning company Appen lost 2.4 per cent.

Industrial stocks were also lower, with airport operator Auckland International Airport Ltd and construction services provider CIMIC Group Ltd down 1.4 per cent and 3.3 per cent, respectively.

Meanwhile, wealth manager AMP Ltd was the biggest loser on the benchmark index having dropped as much as 11 per cent after U.S.-based Ares Management withdrew its $4.5 billion buyout offer, and as it posted a 32 per cent fall in annual profit.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index fell 0.5 per cent, hurt by losses among tech and healthcare shares.