July 02, 2024 at 02:44 am EDT
* Real Estate stocks fall over 1%
* Energy stocks hit over 1-month high
* Liontown Resources soars on funds infusion
(Reuters) - Australian shares closed lower on Tuesday, weighed down by mining and financial stocks and as investors digested the possibility of higher interest rates.
The S&P/ASX 200 index retreated 0.4% to 7,718.2 on the day, after falling 0.2% on Monday.
The Reserve Bank of Australia pondered whether a further rise in rates was needed at its June policy meeting and did not rule out any future changes to policy, the minutes of that meeting showed.
"There is no smoking gun in these minutes to suggest a rate hike in August is the base case for the RBA," analysts at ANZ wrote in a note.
"We continue to expect the cash rate to be on hold at 4.35% until the first 25bp cut in February 2025, but acknowledge there is some risk that the next move is a hike."
Interest rate sensitive financial stocks retreated 0.4% with the 'big four' banks falling between 0.4% and 1.1%.
The upcoming earnings season was also on investors' radar.
"The market is starting to look at the reporting season ... and is struggling to see some of the big caps living up to those multiples," said Mathan Somasundaram, CEO of investment strategy firm Deep Data Analytics.
Heavyweight mining stocks declined 0.5% while real estate stocks shed 1.4%.
Helping cap losses was a 2% jump in energy stocks as oil prices hovered near a two-month high. The sub-index hit over a one-month high.
Lithium miner Liontown Resources climbed up to 17.4% to a two-week high after securing a $250 million investment from LG Energy Solution.
New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index declined 0.1% to 11,776.73. (Reporting by John Biju in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)

Sumber : Reuters