Materials stocks advanced nearly 2% at midday Monday.
BHP Group (ASX:BHP) shares were up more than 1% in recent trade as the price of coking coal spiked following an explosion at a Chinese coal mine on Friday.
Meanwhile, the energy sector struggled, shedding more than 2%.
Shares of Woodside Energy Group (ASX:WDS) fell nearly 4% in midday trade.
DeepSeek said it will permanently reduce pricing for its flagship V4-Pro model to one-quarter of original levels, now ranging from 0.025 yuan to 6 yuan per million tokens, Reuters reported Saturday.The Chinese artificial intelligence company didn't confirm if increased supply of Huawei's Ascend 950 chips enabled the price cut, according to the report.U.S. export restrictions on Nvidia chips have boosted Huawei's AI chip sales, though equipment curbs still limit Ascend production scaling, Reuters wrote. DeepSeek previously cited high-end compute constraints for premium pricing.(Market Chatter news is derived from conversations with market professionals globally. This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed.)
Jardine Matheson (SGX:J36) agreed to fully acquire Australia-based I-Med Radiology Network from funds advised by Permira for AU$3.4 billion, according to a Monday filing with the Singapore Exchange.The acquisition includes I-Med's minority stake in Harrison.ai, which develops AI radiology products.I-Med operates 215 diagnostic imaging clinics across Australia and New Zealand and performs over 7 million procedures annually.The investment is part of the company's strategy to focus on high-quality businesses across the Asia-Pacific region, Jardine Matheson said.Shares of the Singapore-listed conglomerate rose nearly 2% in recent trade.
BHP Group (ASX:BHP) shares gained more than 1% in recent Monday trade as the price of coking coal spiked following a Friday explosion at a Chinese coal mine.Chinese coking coal futures increased by nearly 8% to hit their daily limit after the blast at the privately owned Liushenyu mine, which media reports described as China's deadliest mining accident in more than a decade.The incident left at least 82 people dead and will "almost certainly trigger widespread safety inspections that could affect China's much larger supplies of thermal coal, used in power generation," Bloomberg reported.The most active coking coal contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange jumped 8% to the equivalent of about $186.76 per metric ton, Reuters reported.