The ASX gave up its winning streak today after a reversal on Wall Street put a dampener on gains.
The benchmark ASX 200 was down 22 points or 0.31% come midday, while the All Ords dipped 29 points or 0.4%.
Overnight, Wall Street fell into red territory as the crypto crumble, China’s Covid environment and oil’s performance weighed on investor sentiment.
Looking at the major players, Tesla stock continues to drop after CEO Elon Musk sold 19.5 million shares on Wednesday.
Meta, on the other hand, rose 4.9% after it announced it would lay off 11,000 employees — roughly 13% of its workforce.
On the commodities front — West Texas Intermediate and Brent Crude continued their rort overnight, kicking off a two-day losing streak.
And the crypto market continues its freefall as crypto exchange Binance walks back a bailout for rival FTX Trading.
Less than 24 hours after lobbing its bid, Binance announced the issues at FTX were “beyond its control or ability to help.”
Looking at today’s ASX news, Origin shares are on the up thanks to a renewed takeover bid from Brookfield Asset Management (TSX:BAM.A) and MidOcean Energy.
The non-binding offer values Origin at A$9 a share — up from an earlier proposal priced at A$8, and well above Wednesday’s near $6 closing price.
In other news, Silicon Valley expat Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is ready to take the reins at Xero. She’ll take over from current CEO Steve Vamos in February.
Among the small caps, Tietto Minerals began mining at its Abujar gold project in West Africa, where it’s ready to make its first gold bar before year’s end.
In other gold news, Kingston Resources hit a new production record at Mineral Hill, while Predictive Discovery made headway with some infill drilling results.