Australian shares stuck in tight range, consumer staples among top drags

Australian shares struggled for direction on Monday as gains in index heavyweight miners countered losses in consumer staple stocks, with Treasury Wine Estates hitting a decade-low after flagging an impairment hit.

The S&P/ASX 200 index was little changed at 8,611.60, as of 2343 GMT, starting the month on a subdued note after its weakest November in 11 years.

Consumer staple stocks were among the major laggards on the benchmark index, with Treasury Wine Estates shedding the most after the winemaker said it expected to recognise a non-cash impairment of its US-based assets.

Shares of Treasury Wine Estates fell as much as 6.4% in early trade to A$5.45, hitting their lowest since August 2015.

Supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles fell 0.8% and 0.5%, respectively.

Financials declined 0.4%, with ANZ Group losing 0.6%, while the other “big four” banks traded in positive territory.

Investors recently have been rotating out of financials into relatively underpriced miners on concerns of softening earnings and expectations of an end to monetary policy easing.

Markets are now pricing in the possibility of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) raising interest rates next year, with swaps implying a 42.1% chance of a hike in December 2026.

Traders now await the quarterly gross domestic product report on Wednesday, which would be the last major data point before the RBA’s policy meeting next week.

Mining stocks rose 0.6% amid firm copper and gold prices.

BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue advanced 0.6%, 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively.

Among individual stocks, AUB Group tumbled as much as 18.2% to hit a seven-month low after it said its suitors had walked away from takeover talks that valued the insurer at A$5.25 billion.

ASX fell as much as 1.7% to A$57.21 after the bourse operator’s announcements platforms was hit by an outage.

New Zealand’s benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index fell 0.3% to 13,455.35.