ASX slips; Evolution Mining, Newmont rally on gold fever

The Australian sharemarket slipped on Friday, tracking Wall Street lower on concerns about systemic stress in credit markets and tariff frictions between the US and China.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.4 per cent or 31.6 points to 9036.80 in the opening 10 minutes, pulling away from a record high set in the previous session.
Nine of the 11 sectors were in the red, led by energy and tech stocks. Life360 fell 4.6 per cent and WiseTech lost 0.9 per cent.
There was, again, a lot of action in commodities. Gold miners rose, in line with a fresh record high in the precious metal. Evolution Mining and Newmont rallied more than 3 per cent.
Critical minerals, however, slumped. This comes as the sector will feature high on the agenda during Albanese's first face-to-face meeting with the US president at the White House on Monday. The Labor government is hoping Australia's supply of critical minerals could be used as leverage to convince the US to eventually drop the tariffs it has imposed on its close ally.
Pilbara Minerals fell 3.7 per cent, Mineral Resources retreated 2.6 per cent and IGO dropped 3.7 per cent. The big miners were mixed with BHP down 0.5 per cent and Rio Tinto up 0.7 per cent.
Iluka was the biggest loser, down 13 per cent after pulling its sales forecast on uncertainties relating to a key customer. Venator is selling its UK plant to LB Group, potentially affecting Iluka's 2025-2027 synthetic rutile supply contracts.
Elsewhere on the ASX, the big banks edged up.
Stocks on the move
In corporate news, dual-listed uranium miner NexGen Energy fell 4.3 per cent after raising $C950 million ($1 billion) in a global equity offering to finance its Rook 1 project in Canada.
New Zealand transport software business EROAD cratered 37 per cent after flagging an up to $NZ150 million ($132 million) impairment due to challenging conditions in the US market and cutting earnings guidance.
Stockbroking platform Iress rallied 5.2 per cent on news it was engaging with new third parties, in addition to the ones that have previously expressed interest in the company.
Adore Beauty's share price jumped 7.5 per cent following the appointment of Jason Murray as an independent non-executive director, with an expectation he will be elected chairman at the November 21st AGM.
Vulcan Energy dropped 9 per cent despite striking a partnership deal with JordProxa to provide technology and equipment for its Phase One Lionheart lithium project in Germany.

Sumber : AFR