The ASX took strong lead from global markets overnight into Thursday’s session, finishing the day down 0.75% as investors continued to flee high growth tech stocks in the rising interest rate environment. The worst performing sector today was energy stocks, while 7 of the 11 sectors also closed red today.

Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) soared 13% today after the exploration company announced promising new sulphide mineralisation at the company’s initial drilling at the greenfield Hooley Prospect, around 5km north of the current Gonneville Resources at the 100%-owned Julimar Nickel-Copper-Platinum Project in WA. Sulphide mineralisation was intersected at all 5 reconnaissance holes from three drill sites over the prospect, with assays pending for a further nine holes.

All four big banks have passed on the full 25-basis points rate hike to variable interest rate customers, but none have announced whether, if at all, the rate hike will be passed onto term deposit customers.

Downer (ASX:DOW) shares plunged more than 21% today after the engineering group flagged accounting irregularities and cut its profit guidance for FY23 in an update to investors. The winning stocks from today’s session were led by Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) adding 13%, West African Resources (ASX:WAF) added 4.65% and Sliver Lake Resources (ASX:SLR) jumped 3.88%. And on the losing end of the session, Downer (ASX:DOW) led the losses tanking 20.42%, Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) fell almost 10% and Novonix (ASX:NVX) shed 8.09% today.

The most traded stocks by Bell Direct clients today were Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC), Yancoal (ASX:YAL), and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX:CBA).

On the commodities front this afternoon, crude oil is trading 0.86% higher at US$72.64 per barrel, coal is down 0.93% at US$405 per tonne, gold is down 0.22% at US$1,782 per ounce, and iron ore is down almost 2% at US$107.50 per tonne.

The Aussie dollar is buying 67.15 US cents, 91.99 Japanese Yen, 55.01 British Pence, and NZ$1.06.

In economic data out today, Australia’s trade balance for October was unveiled with a surprise slight fall to $12.217 billion in trade surplus, which well exceeds the forecasted decline to $11.9 billion, indicating exports and imports remained relatively unchanged from September to October.