Technology, miners drag the ASX 200 lower on Wednesday

Australian shares have staged a comeback during Wednesday afternoon’s trading, although falls in technology and major miners ultimately saw the market finish the day in the red.

The benchmark ASX 200 slid 11.70 points or 0.13 per cent to 8,802, while the broader All Ordinaries fell 27 points or 0.30 per cent to 9,071.20.

Australia’s dollar recovered on Wednesday and is now buying 64.92 US cents.

Despite still finishing in the red, the sharemarket recovered strongly during the afternoon session, after falling by nearly 1 per cent in the morning.

IG market analyst Tony Sycamore called it a “volatility flare up”, as the market dropped before recovering during the day’s session.

“You gotta go home and wonder if you’ve seen the lows or is there worse to come,” he questioned.

“These little volatility flare ups are becoming more common and this is the fourth one in a month.”

Mr Sycamore said despite the quick recovery on Wednesday, the ASX 200 was briefly trading down more than 4.2 per cent, which was the biggest top to bottom since the April lows.

Overall it was a mixed day of trading with six of the 11 sectors finishing lower, led by sharp falls in information technology and materials.

Accounting software provider Xero fell 0.92 per cent to $144.63, while WiseTech Global continued its sell off, down a further 1.40 per cent to $67.55.

The iron ore miners fell on Wednesday on news that China could develop a massive mine site out of Africa.

Fortescue Metals dropped 2.5 per cent to $19.97 and Rio Tinto fell 1.2 per cent to $127.84, while BHP also edged lower down 0.47 per cent to $42.34.

Offsetting the falls were gains out of two of the four big banks, with financials jumping 0.52 per cent as a sector.

Commonwealth Bank gained 1.29 per cent to $176.35, while NAB jumped 1.69 per cent to $44.53.

Westpac eased slightly down 0.52 per cent to $40.21, while ANZ was basically flat, inching 0.03 per cent higher to $36.84.

Wednesday’s choppy market followed chief executives in the US of Goldman Sachs, Capital Group and Morgan Stanley saying there could be a market correction during a financial summit

Also weighing on global markets was famed US investor Michael Burry, who predicted the 2008 housing crash, announcing he was betting against AI giants Nvidia and Palantir.

China also announced it will suspend an increase in tariffs on US goods for a further 12-months and keep the 10 per cent levies initially introduced in April following Trump’s Liberation Day duties.

The Chinese State Council said it would temporarily suspend the additional 24 per cent tariffs until November 10 2026.

In company news health insurer Medibank gained 1.2 per cent to $4.90 after announcing a $159m deal for Better Medical.

Nanosonic shares fell 2.9 per cent to $4.30 after announcing a share buyback of $20m during its annual general meeting.

Shares in military company DroneShield slumped 7.5 per cent to $3.85 after informing the market it had vested nearly 45 million performance shares to employees.