Shares in online fast-fashion retailer Shein have fallen eight per cent in their first day of Hong Kong trade as investors ‌worry about the impact of setbacks that long delayed its listing and have undermined its competitive advantages.

Known globally for selling $US5 ($A7) tops and $US10 ($A14) dresses, Shein has been humbled by tariff and duty changes in ‌the US and Europe.

Intense scrutiny of its business practices in the West also hampered its attempts to list in New York and London, which were ultimately blocked by Chinese authorities.

The stock was trading at around HK$US44.6 ($A62.2) in morning trade on Tuesday, valuing the company at around $US24 billion ($A33 billion), far below its 2022 peak of nearly $US100 billion ($A140 billion). Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.6 per cent.

“As a new company listed in Hong Kong, we will continue to innovate, optimise, and co-operate with our supply chain partners for mutual benefit and win-win results,” Shein Chief Financial Officer Leigh Gui said ‌at the opening gong ‌ceremony.

Founder ⁠and CEO Sky Xu, known for disliking the limelight, did not speak at the event though later took pictures ​with Shein employees on stage. He declined to respond to Reuters’ questions.

“I think the weak debut shows that even after the huge valuation reset, investors still don’t see Shein as obviously cheap,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo.

Chanana said Shein was valued at 15 times forward earnings, more than double the multiple for PDD, the owner of rival Temu, which meant “investors were being asked to pay a premium despite weaker growth visibility and significant regulatory and trade risks”.

Demand for Shein’s stock during the IPO was tepid compared to high-profile offerings from the AI and robotics ⁠sectors.

The retail tranche was subscribed 5.63 times, while the international portion was subscribed 2.59 times. Some ‌deals have been hundreds ​of times oversubscribed, especially from Hong Kong’s army of retail investors who track IPOs very closely.

The amount sold in the IPO represents about 6.6 per cent of Shein’s enlarged share capital. Cornerstone ​investors took about one-fifth ‌of the IPO and are locked up for six months, leaving roughly five per cent freely tradeable.

Last year, the US ended the de minimis duty exemption for e-commerce ​shipments under $US800 ($A1116) that had powered Shein’s direct-shipping model. The European Union recently followed suit, imposing fees on low-value packages.

Shein’s net income slid 39 per cent last year and it swung to a loss in the first quarter.

Shein has said it expects first-half operating profit margin to be slightly lower than in the first quarter, hurt by higher customs ​duties, ​tariffs, fees and logistics costs in Europe and the Middle East.

“New markets ​could help offset slower growth in the US and Europe, but lower spending power in ‌developing markets may limit the benefit if delivery costs stay high,” said Lorraine Tan, director of equity research at Morningstar.

Shein has been trying to widen beyond its own-label ultra-cheap fast fashion, having expanded its third-party marketplace and bought US apparel brand Everlane in May.

In its prospectus it said it aims to offer marketplace and supply chain services to more brands, in the footsteps of French brand Pimkie and British brand Missguided, which it bought in 2023.

The IPO has helped Shein compensate early investors who invested at much higher valuations. The company has agreed to make ​cash payments totaling about $US3.5 billion ($A4.9 billion) and share adjustments to some preferred shareholders.

“This IPO is not just a fundraising event — it is also, and probably more of, a capital-structure event,” ​said Jianggan Li, CEO of consultancy Momentum Works.

Inflation fears are back in focus after renewed fighting between the US and Iran sent oil prices higher, weighing on investor confidence.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 fell 34.4 points by midday on Monday, down 0.38 per cent, to 9,041.6 as the broader All Ordinaries lost 37.5 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 9,233.9.

Wall Street indices fell overnight, after Brent crude topped $91 a barrel as the US and Iran exchanged strikes, presenting fresh inflation risks ahead of key interest-rate decisions for global central banks this month.

“The rise in oil is particularly important for markets because it adds another potential source of inflationary pressure just as investors are reassessing the US Federal Reserve’s interest-rate outlook,” Moomoo market strategy consultant Greg Boland said.

Both US and Australian bond yields have surged, with US 10-year yields reaching 4.8 per cent for the first time since early 2025, while Aussie 10-year yields hit a six-month high near 5.16 per cent.

Markets have a September interest-rate hike by the Reserve Bank as a coin-toss decision, and have fully priced in a 25 basis point increase to 4.6 per cent by November’s meeting.

Energy stocks were the only real success story on Tuesday morning, the segment up 1.6 per cent and tracking with similar gains in Santos, Woodside and Ampol.

Utilities and health care, traditionally defensive sectors, also advanced more than 0.6 per cent each.

CSL added an extra 1.3 per cent to $173 per share after inking a drug price deal with the Trump administration, and is up 92 per cent from June’s lows near $90.

The heavyweight financials sector handed back some of Monday’s bounce, easing 0.6 per cent, as CommBank led the big four banks lower to trade at $158.75 per share.

Retail stocks tumbled, with cyclicals down 2.6 per cent and staples shedding 1.8 per cent, as ANZ’s consumer confidence fell after four straight weeks of gains, finally giving way to rate-hike worries.

Local technology stocks were also heavy as the idea of higher borrowing costs weighed on traders’ minds, the group down 1.7 per cent in a broad-sector sell-off.

Resources traded flat, as an uplift in gold producers and modest gains in BHP and Rio Tinto helped ballast a mixed session elsewhere.

Gold was trading near $US4,442 ($A6,193) an ounce, while copper prices hovered near record highs and iron ore futures approached $US100 a tonne.

In company news, Telix Pharmaceuticals has appointed David Gill to chair its board.

Collins Foods shares jumped 2.5 per cent after the KFC operator’s trading update reported strong sales growth to kick off the new financial year.

The Australian dollar was buying 71.72 US cents, up from 71.61 US cents on Monday at 5pm.

Artificial intelligence could be the ticket out of stunted economic growth while risking the future of increasingly high-skilled jobs, according to Treasury advice.

In a brief handed to the treasurer, AI has been characterised as a tool which could provide significant productivity gains across the public and private sectors to the tune of 1.2 per cent a year by 2030.

It’s a prediction made against the backdrop of declining labour productivity in recent years and anaemic GDP growth.

Productivity estimates vary wildly, with Treasury noting the significant uncertainty over the extent of positive impacts from AI which could take decades to materialise.

Treasury also flagged the capacity of AI to disrupt high-skilled, non-routine and cognitive jobs in a way never seen in previous technological advances.

Australia’s prosperity depends on keeping pace with the global shift towards AI, according to the brief which underpins a large part of the artificial intelligence chapter in October’s Intergenerational Report.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers acknowledged the significance of AI as the first substantive and credible productivity growth accelerant in almost 20 years.

“We can’t just sit around and hope the benefits of AI fall into our lap – we have to reach out and take them,” he said in a statement.

Data from the Reserve Bank in late 2025 suggested the take up of AI had been limited to one-in-10 businesses using it in a significant way, which Treasury said was likely to increase as ways to use AI developed over time.

Regulation and taxes are hampering business from seizing its share of the AI opportunity, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says.

Chief executive Andrew McKellar said expecting Australian businesses to compete globally on AI at the moment “does not compute”.

“Australian businesses should not have to engage in this competition with one hand tied behind their backs,” he said.

The world is in an AI arms race with traditional superpowers seeking to harness productivity growth, and in China’s case, reshaping its economy entirely, former prime minister Kevin Rudd says.

Mr Rudd on Wednesday spoke of China hedging its bets on AI to not only increase stalling economic growth but to “leapfrog” western nations by doing away with the free market altogether.

The Treasury advice makes brief mention of possible concerns surrounding AI including the risk outputs remain more expensive to verify than generate and dwindling social licence to build data centres.

The United States’ move to welcome Russia back to a meeting of G20 countries while denying some journalists access ‌to the gathering has dismayed some finance leaders, deflecting from its bid to focus talks on global economic growth.

The two-day meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, comes as the global economy is being buffeted by an energy shock triggered by the Iran war, faces rising tensions over ‌China’s huge goods trade surplus and is braced for how an investment surge in AI will ultimately play out.

Global debt levels earlier this year hit a record of nearly $US353 ($A493) trillion, leading to concerns about financial stability and prompting some investors to reappraise even traditionally safe havens such as US ‌Treasuries.

“The world is awash in debt post-GFC, post-COVID, and the only way for us to get out of this is to grow our way out of this,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the start of the meeting on Monday, referring to the 2007 to 2009 global financial crisis.

“I’m confident that a lot of the leaders are very receptive to this,” he said.

As Bessent opened the meeting, some ministers were surprised and dismayed to see Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov sitting at the G20 table, the first time he has attended the forum in person since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Siluanov also held a bilateral meeting with Bessent that covered financial co-operation within the G20 framework, Russia’s finance ministry said.

A US official said the focus of the bilateral meeting was on President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine.

German Finance Minister Lars ‌Klingbeil said Europe was preparing a ‌further package of sanctions against Russia, but Siluanov’s ⁠presence at the Asheville meeting sent a “quite troubling” signal for US co-operation with the effort.

“I would have wanted greater clarity from the American side that he should not be ​received here as a normal guest,” Klingbeil said.

European officials also said they opposed appearing in the traditional “family photo” of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors, adding that this ultimately was taken without Siluanov.

His appearance marks a stark contrast from April 2022, when even his virtual participation in a G20 meeting in Washington drew broad condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and prompted a walkout by officials from the US, Britain, Canada and the European Central Bank.

Another issue that drew criticism was the US Treasury’s decision to deny certain journalists media credentials to cover the event, including teams from Bloomberg News and specific reporters from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

“I believe the press has a completely legitimate interest in reporting openly and freely on this G20 summit,” Klingbeil said. 

“I consider it unacceptable for journalists or entire editorial teams ⁠to be excluded.”

A US Treasury spokesperson said that over 300 media were covering the event, including another New York Times reporter, and access comes with ‌a “responsibility to report factual information consistent with ​established journalistic standards”.

The Treasury also took the unusual step of inviting private-sector luminaries to participate in some of the G20 sessions on promoting stronger growth, reflecting the Trump administration’s view that growth was best served by deregulation, producing more energy and fostering innovation.

Bessent ​told one of the ‌sessions that global growth had underperformed its potential for too long and that causes can no longer include “policy failures of our own making”.

He said the US Treasury had identified several impediments to growth that G20 countries needed to work on, including “excessive regulatory and ​administrative burdens, poorly designed financial incentives and tax systems, insufficient public and private investment, internal market fragmentation, and gaps in workforce skills and mobility”.

The prices of homes in almost all Australian capital cities have gone down for the fifth month in a row, creating opportunities for buyers.

Cotality’s home value index decreased by 0.9 per cent in August with a median property costing $912,885, the data firm reported on Tuesday.

Roughly 93 per cent of suburbs across Australia had a drop in value. The only capital city with a rise in prices was Darwin, at 0.6 per cent, though the median value remains the cheapest in the nation at $647,000.

The Middle East conflict, interest rate cuts and federal changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing have taken some sting out of the market for purchasers. 

Sydney led the downturn for capital cities with a 1.4 per cent decrease across the month, bringing the median property price to $1.2 million. 

Canberra and Melbourne values went down by 1.1 per cent, and Brisbane by one per cent. 

But first home buyers trying to purchase in cheaper areas might be waiting several months for values to fall to levels they can afford, Cotality head of research Gerard Berg said. 

While there were outliers in each city, there was a trend toward outer suburbs recording higher growth than their more expensive, inner city counterparts in the year to August.

“The downturn commenced among the highest value suburbs initially. We have seen a slower spread across the other parts of cities,” Mr Berg said. 

In greater Brisbane, prices in the Logan suburbs of Beenleigh and Carbrook rose by more than 14 per cent. 

Sydney’s outer areas, including Camden, Penrith, and the Blue Mountains, had some of the highest 12-month value growths across the city. 

It is common for prices in expensive suburbs to change first, setting market trends. Values in the most affordable areas are often last to move. 

The high number of suburbs in price decline during August suggested the areas young buyers have their eyes on will soon change too. 

Mr Berg said first home buyers who were able to make a purchase but lacked confidence should seriously consider doing so while limited buyers are around. 

“Being such a high value purchase, you need to be confident you are making the right decision,” he said. 

“But if you are looking to hold the property for an extended period of time, you don’t want to try and pick the bottom of the cycle. You almost certainly won’t find that exact point.”

Jim Hermiston had just been hit in the face with a pistol.

Despite successfully tackling an armed robber and holding him to the ground in the middle of a shopping centre, Mr Hermiston found himself with a gun pointed at his head.

“I just heard the click,” he told AAP.

“I thought, well, it clicked. That’s good. Still here.”

The off-duty Queensland Police officer had just cheated death at nine o’clock on a Monday morning in a Brisbane suburb.

It was a cloudy day in winter 1999 and Mr Hermiston was expecting a pretty sedate day off from work.

Going to the Indooroopilly shopping centre with his wife Maureen and daughter Louise was about as exciting as it was going to get.

Six weeks earlier, Mr Hermiston had just missed an armed robber at the Medicare shopfront by waiting at the wrong exit.

Before he went into that very shop he half-jokingly told his family to keep an eye out for a man with a gun and a balaclava.

“It was about a minute, minute and a half later, Maureen comes running out,” he said.

“I went up to the door to have a look, and I saw the guy. He’s a big fella, balaclava and all that.

“It was sort of just so funny. Six weeks later, the same thing happens. It was unreal.”

The man forced his way along the counter with a bag of money.

“He pushed an old lady out the way, and I thought, oh, that seems a bit, you know, that’s not nice.”

As the man left the shop Mr Hermiston ran up behind him, pinned him to the ground and removed his balaclava.

A tussle ensued with the man striking him in the face and threatening to shoot him.

Luckily Mr Hermiston’s career as a Scottish league footballer in the 1960s had prepared him for it.

“You got a lot of kicks and knocks, and you just pick pick yourself up. So that’s in your system.”

Tensions eased once the gun failed to fire and the man realised he would not get away.

When the police arrived to handle the situation, Mr Hermiston brushed himself off and went to have a coffee with his family.

He received a valour award from the police force but evaded much of the media which was still grappling with the shooting of an officer 20km away just a few months before.

Mr Hermiston, along with 53 others will today receive a bravery award from the Governor General, to commemorate National Wattle Day.

The honours include two Bravery Medal awards for a woman who evaded a stabbing attack and a man who saved someone from a suicide attempt at a Cairns hotel.

Mr Hermiston joins 21 others in receiving a Commendation for Brave Conduct.

This year includes a lengthy list of those acknowledged for rescuing people trapped in burning vehicles and swimmers caught in dangerous ocean currents as well as individuals stepping in during violent incidents and home invasions.

Mr Hermiston’s daughter Louise and the late Frank Putland will also receive an award for helping during the 1999 incident.

The former cop said he’s still pretty “chuffed” 27 years on by his actions and honoured to be recognised.

It was exactly what he joined the police force to do, he said.

“It might be cliche or whatever, but it was to protect the public, preserve the peace, et cetera.”

Governor-General Sam Mostyn said the honours reminded Australians of the strength and depth of the human spirit.

“I want to send a special message of thanks to those for whom an act of courage has left physical or emotional wounds that endure long after the moment of danger has passed,” she said.

Nominations for Australian Bravery Decorations for people involved in the response to the Bondi terror attack are being considered and will be announced in a special honours list in coming months.

Australia will fund the development of Pacific athletes to bolster their medal chances at the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.

Anthony Albanese announced a $15.6 million investment in high-performance sport in his latest bout of sports diplomacy at the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau.

The soft power spending plays to a shared love of sport in the region.

“As we move forward in planning for Brisbane 2032, Australia looks forward to welcoming the best of the best sporting talent from the Pacific and supporting them to go for gold,” Mr Albanese said.

The new funding is a drop in the ocean compared to the $600 million rugby league pact that will bring an NRL team to Port Moresby in 2028.

That investment includes $290 million for the PNG Chiefs and $250 million towards growing rugby league in the region.

The latest pledge will help Pacific athletes train for and attend the 2027 Pacific Games, the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, the 2029 Pacific Mini Games and other key events through to 2030.

The government’s step-up in sports diplomacy has been welcomed by Bond University assistant professor Stuart Murray, who said Australia’s strategic thinking in the build-up to the Sydney Olympics was non-existent.

“There was absolutely nothing,” he told AAP.

“Governments that used to get big events like the Olympics … their (diplomatic) thinking was sporadic, jingoistic, very national and opportunistic.”

Australia’s thinking now is built around a “green and gold decade” of events through to 2032, finding ways to include the region and bolster ties.

“Sports diplomacy is a many-headed beast,” Dr Murray said.

“Aussies love sport and they want to help their neighbours but there’s a human security side too – how can we use the vehicle of rugby league to help girls and women in Papua New Guinea, with horrendous rates of violence?

“How can we use sport as a way to boost education to reduce violence?”

Dr Murray said funding that allowed Pacific athletes to compete under their own flags would be especially welcome.

“There’s a huge amount of stuff we do out into the Pacific … including grabbing talent,” he said.

It’s a criticism that has been levied at the NRL deal, which will direct millions to rugby-mad nations such as Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, aimed at developing talent for mostly Australian clubs.

Rugby union’s big splash has benefited through funding to the Fijian Drua Super Rugby franchise, but the code fears the NRL splash could erode its talent pathway.

Rugby Australia is pitching a “Veimoana” partnership to the Albanese government that could bolster the sport in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga with a new competition.

It is not uncommon for politicians or royals, as is the case in Tonga, to head up national rugby bodies.

“Rugby has been played in the Pacific for more than a century and is deeply embedded in communities,” Rugby Australia’s Daniel Millis told AAP.

“Many Pacific leaders are themselves products of the game, having represented their villages, provinces and even their countries.

“That gives rugby a unique ability to open doors for Australia at the highest levels, while also … delivering meaningful opportunities and development outcomes for communities.”

On top of the NRL deal, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade runs two sport development programs in the region.

PacificAus Sports ferries high-performance teams to and from the Pacific across several sports, growing links and creating competition opportunities.

That could mean A-League teams playing matches in the region, youth national team exchanges across several sports, or national netball teams in Australia-hosted tournaments.

TeamUp is Australia’s community sports initiative in the region, with “gender equality, disability inclusion, health and social cohesion” goals.

The two programs cost a combined $25.6 million annually, bringing the overall Pacific sports bill to about $90 million for each year of the NRL deal.

The glow of LED candle lights and phone torches have littered a city skyline as mourners joined together in memory of victims of a devastating flood in the Himalayas.

Hundreds of Nepali and Tibetan diaspora, along with members of the wider community, united at a candlelight vigil at Melbourne’s Federation Square on Monday evening, five days on from the catastrophic flooding which has claimed more than 900 lives.

Buddhist monks and Hindu priests chanted sacred mantras as community members young and old laid electric candles and said prayers at a mural at the foot of the stage.

“Behind every missing person is a family living through unbearable, uncertainty, hoping for a phone call, reunion, or a final answer,” Victoria United for Nepal’s Nirajan Gauli told the crowd.

More than 3000 people are still missing on either side of the border, including 43 Australians, after the disaster was triggered by a glacier collapse in the Himalayas near the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday morning.

Victorian Premier Ben Carroll announced a $100,000 pledge for the recovery effort on behalf of the state government, adding to an $8 million commitment by the federal government.

“All of Victoria stands behind you, and every candle in Federation Square tonight is lit up for you, Mr Carroll told the community.

Mr Carroll was joined by Multicultural Affairs Minister Paul Edbrooke, shadow minister for multicultural affairs Evan Mulholland and several other parliamentary colleagues in a bipartisan display of solidarity.

Nepali Australian Asmita Pokhrel travelled more than an hour with her five month old daughter to pay her respects.

“Everyone in Nepal is family, so it affects us all,” she told AAP.

“I want (my daughter) to learn we are all connected. A lot of people are here from all different communities so we are very grateful.”

The community mourned not only the loss of life, but the vulnerability of the Himalayan region, Mr Gauli said.

“Climate change is contributing to changing rainfall patterns, intense storms, melting snows and glaciers, and increasingly unstable landscapes,” he told the crowd.

“These conditions are making floods and landslides more dangerous.”

Despite contributing only 0.1 per cent of global carbon emissions, Nepal faces the brunt of climate change impacts, he said.

Rescue crews near the Tibetan Plateau are desperately battling the clock in the search for survivors among the rubble, as mass burials begin.

Many of the Australians missing were completely the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra- a spiritual journey significant across several religions including Hinduism and Buddhism.

Sydney IT worker Gopi Krishna Naidu Agastya, Royal Australian Air Force member Karan Bhardwaj, Sydney woman Sumi Adhikari and Sunshine Coast woman Renee Spry have also been confirmed among the Australian trekkers missing in the tragedy.

Mr Agastya, 45, had completed the pilgrimage with spiritual tour company the Isha Foundation alongside a large group including 10 other Australians.

The Parramatta man was clearing immigration at the Gyirong port on the Nepal-China border en route back to Kathmandu when the powerful flood hit, his friend Murthy Yeluru told AAP.

“It was a dream of his to visit this Mansarovar, it’s a very rare opportunity,” Mr Yeluru said.

Mr Agastya’s wife and two young daughters have flown from Sydney to his native Hyderabad in India to be with family as they await answers.

“Their hopes are slowly reducing,” Mr Yeluru said.

Australia’s peak motor neurone disease advocacy body has welcomed a state’s move to make the disorder a notifiable condition, calling for an expansion of the nation-first initiative. 

The law change in NSW will enforce the collection and reporting of key data from those with the disease to assist researchers working on MND preventions, treatments and cures.

Cases of the debilitating disease, which affects eight in every 100,000 Australians, will be fed into a central system from Tuesday.

The move marked a significant step in understanding the disease, MND Australia chief executive Clare Sullivan said.

“Better data means better planning, better care and more informed research,” she told AAP. 

But Ms Sullivan called on other states and territories to commit to the initiative.

“While this is good progress, people living with MND across Australia deserve the same commitment, that’s why we’re working on developing a comprehensive national data approach,” she said.

“MND doesn’t stop at state borders and neither should our understanding of it.”

State health ministers are expected to discuss the development on Friday.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler, who will attend the meeting, said a nationally consistent system was the Commonwealth’s preference.

A notifiable disease is a medical condition that by law must be reported to NSW Health by medical practitioners, hospitals, laboratories and schools or childcare facilities, to help prevent and control the spread.

Data, including age, gender, country of birth, and occupations, will be collected and kept confidential. It will also include details about the referring doctor.

Discrepancies in the appearance of MND meant it was crucial to study cases at a “granular” level, Macquarie University expert Dominic Rowe said.

More data would help researchers to isolate any environmental factors behind case clusters, Professor Rowe said. 

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park conceded it was a “bit unusual” to include a disease such as MND as a notifiable illness.

“We don’t have enough answers to this piece of the question,” he said. 

“And the question is: how we can cure and better treat people and give them a longer life and a better quality of life for those suffering from MND? We need to do better.”

MND is a rare, progressive neurological disorder that causes rapid degeneration of muscle activity and can impair walking, talking, breathing and general functioning.

About 90 per cent of cases occur sporadically, without apparent reasons or hereditary links. There is no cure.

Awareness of the crippling disease has grown in Australia because of the late AFL legend Neale Daniher’s trailblazing FightMND foundation and the tragic recent diagnosis of 30-year-old NRL star Jai Arrow.

Their devastating battles have united the public and sporting codes, driving unprecedented awareness and research funding to fight the disease.

Australia’s share market is off to a shaky start to the week, after the US Federal Reserve flagged higher borrowing costs and renewed conflict in Iran sent oil prices higher.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index inched 0.7 points higher, or 0.01 per cent, to 9,093, as the broader All Ordinaries lost 5.1 points, or 0.09 per cent, to 9,286 by noon on Monday.

The move followed a weak finish for US equities on Friday, after hawkish comments from Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh prompted markets to brace for a US interest rate hike as soon as September.

Brent crude has jumped at the open to above $US90 a barrel, following reports that the US has targeted Iranian rocket launchers in the Strait of Hormuz, sparking retaliation strikes in the first such attacks in a month.

Local energy stocks gained 0.8 per cent, led by strong upticks in refinery operators Viva and Ampol, which each gained more than two per cent.

Rebounding banks helped keep the bourse out of the red, with financials up 1.6 per cent as Westpac led the big four higher.

It would mark a second straight positive session for the sector, which had fallen more than 10 per cent in roughly three weeks after housing sector concerns hammered earnings expectations.

Non-energy miners were a sea of red, the heavyweight segment down two per cent as precious metals retreated and copper eased from near all-time highs following the Federal Reserve’s hawkish pivot.

Gold bullion is trading at $US4,443 ($A6,200) an ounce, falling for a third session from its recent rally.

Iron ore futures defied the trend, soaring to five-week highs of $US99.40 a tonne.

The traditionally defensive consumer staples sector gained 1.3 per cent as investors continued to pick up Woolworths and Coles stocks.

Buying in consumer cyclicals was more measured, with the segment improving by 0.6 per cent amid a strong performance from Domino’s Pizza and some dip buying in Smiggle owner Premier Investments.

August earnings season has almost wound up, with a handful of names reporting on Monday.

Shares in Star Entertainment dipped almost four per cent after the casino giant narrowed its bottom-line annual loss to $307 million, from $480 million in 2024/25.

Liontown’s share price swung in the other direction after the lithium miner handed down a maiden post-tax net profit of $93 million for the financial year.

Monash IVF also advanced despite softer revenue weighing on its profit result.

Looking ahead, the Australian Bureau of Statistics will deliver third-quarter economic growth figures on Wednesday.

The Australian dollar was buying 71.66 US cents, down from 71.99 US cents on Friday at 5pm, after the Federal Reserve’s hawkish pivot narrowed the divergence in Australian and US interest rate expectations.