Australia’s resource-heavy stock market had enough support from record-high oil and metal prices to cushion the impact of a global equities sell-off on Monday. But major Asian bourse dropped as much as 3.7 per cent and US futures declined sharply, suggesting a weak session on Wall Street overnight.
Sentiment was drained by fears of an oil price shock if the US imposes sanctions on Russia – which produces about 10 per cent of daily global supply – that would potentially push prices up to $US150 per barrel this year.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 lost last week’s gains, falling 1 per cent or 72.2 points to 7,038.6. Woodside Petroleum and Santos both reached two-year highs, with Woodside up 9.5 per cent to $34.41 and Santos up 5.3 per cent to $8.17.
Global oil prices have pushed to 14-year highs with retail petrol prices across Australia at record levels.Credit:AP
Oil prices spiked early Monday morning to 14-year highs of $US139.13 a barrel for Brent crude and $US130.50 a barrel for WTI crude. Copper prices spiked at all-time highs while nickel futures returned to 14-year highs. Gold touched $US2,000 per ounce for the first time in 19 months.
Portfolio manager at Tribeca Investment Partners, Jun Bei Liu, said without the oil, gold, and copper producers, the ASX would have been much worse off.
“The reason Asian markets are down more is because the ASX is actually a very defensive market,″ she explained.
“Quite a big part of our index is resources and without those large…
