ASX 200: Miners Send ASX Lower as Xero Jumps 9.1% on Buyback
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.4% on Thursday morning as BHP, Rio Tinto and gold miners slid. Xero surged 9.1% after announcing a $1 billion share buyback, but the tech gains failed to lift the wider market despite a strong night on Wall Street.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.4 percent to 9113.80 shortly after 11am AEDT on Thursday, November 12, 2026, as miners send ASX lower even as Wall Street rallied overnight. The index was down 39.4 points, with seven of its 11 industry sectors in the red.
The Australian dollar was weaker at 68.44 US cents. The ASX 200 had added 0.3 percent on Wednesday.
Miners lead the losses
Mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto were down 1.4 percent and 1.7 percent. Gold miners also declined after bullion slipped below US$4000 an ounce.
Gold has been hit by high US inflation data and hawkish remarks from Federal Reserve officials. Those comments reinforced expectations of a December rate hike. Higher rates weigh on gold because it pays no yield.
The energy sector was flat. Woodside rose 0.1 percent and Santos gained 0.5 percent, while refiner Ampol dropped 0.7 percent.
Oil prices climbed overnight as traders weighed mixed signals on whether the Iran war could end. Regional flare-ups have persisted and peace talks have shown little progress. Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said in an interview that Iran will not remove "a single atom" of enriched nuclear material from the country.
West Texas Intermediate futures rose above US$86 a barrel after sliding about 5 percent over the previous two days. Brent was up 1.4 percent at US$92.76.
Xero lifts tech
Software maker Xero soared 9.1 percent. It said it plans to buy $1 billion of its own shares over the next 12 months and raised its sales and earnings forecasts for the financial year.
First-half sales jumped 46 percent to $NZ1.75 billion ($1.42 billion). Xero said it won 226,000 new customers in the period.
WiseTech and Technology One initially rose with Xero, then pared gains to 0.9 percent and 0.6 percent. Data centre operator NextDC rose 1.2 percent. The tech rally was not enough to offset the drag from materials.
Reports that Nvidia is preparing to oust its CEO and founder Jensen Huang added uncertainty for the sector. Such a move, the reports said, risks major disruption to the AI industry.
Banks mixed
The Big Four banks diverged. Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) gained 1.3 percent despite a lawsuit from the corporate regulator. The regulator alleges the country's biggest bank overcharged tens of thousands of business customers, many of them small businesses, millions of dollars in fees they were never told about.
NAB was flat after admitting it underpaid 66,000 workers $127 million over 14 years. Some workers are owed more than $87,000 each. The bank will repay $169 million to staff, including superannuation and interest, and make a $2 million "contrition payment" to the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Westpac rose 0.9 percent. ANZ Bank lost 2 percent.
Wall Street rebound
On Wall Street, a rebound in artificial intelligence stocks lifted the US market. The S&P 500 rose 1.3 percent and came close to erasing last week's sell-off, which was triggered by worries about a slowdown for AI-related businesses. It sits within 2.6 percent of its all-time high set last month.
The Nasdaq composite climbed 1.6 percent, the best of the major indexes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 254 points, or 0.5 percent.
CoreWeave, which rents out access to AI chips over the cloud, jumped 24.7 percent. It showed investors it lost less money over the summer than analysts expected.
