The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has closed out a positive trading week, wrapping up with a technology-driven rally on Friday that pushed the benchmark index into positive territory even as ongoing concerns about potential interest rate hikes simmer among investors.
Upbeat quarterly results from major U.S. tech giants Nvidia and Salesforce spilled over into overnight trading on Wall Street, and that momentum carried over to Australia’s domestic tech sector, which led all industry gains for the day. By the closing bell, the ASX 200 benchmark index climbed 0.6% to settle at 9092.3 points, with nine out of 11 tracked industry sectors finishing in positive territory. For the full week, the index logged a solid 0.37% gain, arriving at the final stretch of the quarterly corporate earnings reporting season.
A number of individual stocks posted dramatic single-day gains. Dicker Data, a leading Australian IT software and hardware provider, saw its share price surge 20.7% to $15.30 after the firm reported a 37% jump in first-half net earnings. Fiona Brown, the company’s managing director, attributed the strong performance to growing market opportunities driven by global enterprise technology refresh cycles, rising corporate investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure, and sustained high demand for software and cybersecurity solutions.
Other tech stocks also posted significant gains. SaaS firm Readytech Holdings recovered 8.8% in Friday trading, trimming its year-to-date loss to 37% amid a broader sector-wide pullback for software-as-a-service stocks. Accounting software provider Xero notched its best single-day performance in two months, climbing 4.8% to $85.64, while Technology One gained 3.5%, and WiseTech, NEXTDC and LIFE360 all posted gains between 2.1% and 2.7%. In the resources sector, Pantoro Gold rose 5.9% and integrated lithium developer Vulcan Energy gained 5% to rank among the day’s top movers.
Not all stocks ended the day in positive territory, however. Property exchange platform PEXA plummeted 17.4% to hit an all-time low in its five years of public trading on the ASX, after the company released full-year results that included guidance forecasting a sharp slowdown in future earnings driven by declining homeowner sales activity in a cooling property market.
Investment firm WAM Capital also faced severe volatility, with shares dropping 18.5% to reach a 16-year low. The company reported an after-tax operating loss of $125.9 million for the 2024 financial year, a sharp reversal from the $219.6 million profit it posted in the prior year. It also announced a halved partially franked dividend, ending six consecutive years of dividend payouts that exceeded realized annual profits.
Other notable single-day moves included Virgin Australia, which announced its first dividend since relisting on the exchange. Even though the airline reported a 13% uplift in annual earnings, the announcement failed to attract buyer interest, and shares dipped 1.4%. Retail giant Harvey Norman fell 1.8% as ongoing weak trade conditions in the United Kingdom weighed on investor sentiment. Jack Cowin, chairman of Domino’s Pizza Australia, purchased an additional $3 million in Domino’s shares this week, just days after the chain reported a full-year net loss of $134.2 million. Cowin stepped down from his role as non-executive chairman on August 5, and Domino’s shares dipped 1% in Friday trading.
Market analysts have noted rising volatility during the final stretch of this earnings reporting season. Morningstar analysts have adjusted their fair value estimates upward for roughly one-third of the Australian companies they cover this reporting cycle, while cutting valuations for only around 20% of covered firms. Average share price movements on earnings results day currently sit at 6.5% in either direction, a level not far off the all-time high for daily volatility set back in February 2025. “We’re seeing share price volatility pick up again too, little surprise given the smaller stocks cluster in the final week,” Morningstar analyst Lochlan Halloway explained in a research note this week.
Despite hotter-than-expected domestic inflation data released earlier this week that stoked broader concerns about imminent interest rate hikes from the Reserve Bank of Australia, the interest rate-sensitive ASX 200 still managed to carry through to a weekly gain, underscoring the strength of the tech-driven rally that anchored the end of the trading week.