Market Wrap / flat week

The Australian sharemarket finished positively for a second consecutive week , with the S&P/ASX200 closing higher by 0.2% to 8634.60 points. Over the course of the week, the index gained 20.50 points.

NextDC stole the headlines on the back of its deal with OpenAI, soaring 3.5%. Gains in the tech sector were also distributed amongst Life360 and Megaport, both climbing an impressive 4.0%. 

Elsewhere, the Big Four saw green across the board with heavyweight Westpac recording the largest gains of 1.1%. 

Gold miners also proved strong growth for the day with bets of a Fed rate cut next week, seeing Newmount jump 2.8% along with Evolution Mining tracking up 2.2%. 

However Rio Tinto tumbled 1.3% as copper prices retreated from their record high. Regardless, the materials sector managed to climb 0.8% to round out the day of trade.

In the smaller end of town, Saluda Medical slid more than 40% following its debut on the ASX. The medical device company lost almost half of its value as it fell to A$1.48 within the first few minutes of trading. 

Overnight, the US released the September personal income and spending as well as the University of Michigan consumer sentiment for December.