[BREAKING] Australian Shares Inch Lower on Virus, U.S. Stimulus Worries

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian shares edged lower on Wednesday due to waning prospects of a U.S. stimulus deal and rising global cases of the novel coronavirus, although gains in local healthcare and tech stocks limited the benchmark’s losses.

Illustration photo of ASX trading board from Medium

The S&P/ASX 200 index dipped 0.1% to 6,047.6 by 00:17 (GMT), weighed down by financials and energy sub-indexes. The benchmark lost 1.7% on Tuesday.

Overnight, Wall Street closed lower after U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged the much-needed COVID-19 stimulus, the cause of intense market volatility these past few weeks, would likely come after the Nov 3 election.

Denting sentiment further, global cases of COVID-19 crossed 43.61 million, with the death toll at 1,160,278, a Reuters tally showed. In the United States, the disease has killed more than 225,000 and infected more than 8.7 million people.

Australia’s heavyweight financial sub-index index fell 1% to lead losses and hit a two-week low. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s shares were the biggest drag.

Shares of the country’s third largest lender slid 2.7% on revealing a $376 million hit to second-half earnings.

The other three of the “Big Four” banks traded 1.4% to 1.7% lower.

The ASX 200 Energy index fell 1.5%. Electricity retailer Origin Energy Ltd led the decline with its 2.6% fall, and fuel refiner Ampol Ltd dropped 2.3%.

The healthcare and tech indexes firmed 1.2% and 2.2%, respectively, to counter some of the losses on the benchmark.

Shares of medical device maker Resmed Inc jumped 4.3% to power healthcare stocks a day before the U.S.-based company’s quarterly results where it’s expected to record a jump in revenue.

Meanwhile, buy-now-pay-later favourite Afterpay Ltd’s stellar first-quarter results boosted its stock price by nearly 5%.

New Zealand’s benchmark gained 0.4% or 57.9 points to 12,309.8.

Gains were driven by healthcare firms Fisher and Paykel Healthcare Corp Ltd and Oceania Healthcare Ltd, advancing 4.6% and 1.4%, respectively.

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