The Australian stock market has started the week with a flat session, however, one company has seen its price fall after a major government announcement.
The ASX200 closed down just 4.60 points or down just 0.06 percent on Monday, leaving the index at 7,289.50 points.
That result snaps a four-day winning streak, leaving the index 3.64 percent higher than the previous five days and 3.56 percent below its 52-week high.
Endeavor Group saw its price fall 9.90 percent to $5.64 on Monday after the Victorian government announced new restrictions on poker machines.
The Andrews government will expand slot machine rules, such as making players set daily loss limits and lowering the Crown casino’s spin rates to all Victorian pubs, which make up Endeavour’s biggest market.
Despite the drop, Endeavor says it is “welcome for the opportunity” to work with the government on timelines and models for the changes.
“There are still a large number of details to work out, including implementation timelines, so it is very difficult to speculate on the impact of these reforms at this time,” an Endeavor spokesperson said.
Despite the small loss, six of the 11 sectors ended higher, with information technology the best performer.
IT gained 0.89 percent in a single day and 7.31 percent in the past five days, while consumer discretionary grew 0.64 percent on Monday, followed by industrials at 0.50 percent. hundred.
Miners did not fare as well as materials fell 0.90 percent, followed by energy down 0.82 percent.
Second to Endeavor with the worst trading of the day was lithium giant Sayona Mining, which saw its prices fall by 7.90 percent to $0.18.
The drop came after an extraordinary general meeting in which it was decided that 10 million shares would be issued to managing director and chief executive officer Brett Lynch and 10 million options to chief executive officer and chief financial officer Paul Crawford.
Despite the passing of the resolutions, a whopping 45 percent of the vote was not in favor, causing a drop.
“The board has engaged with investors and will incorporate that feedback into compensation structures,” the company said after the results were released on Monday.
The company also appointed an independent compensation consultant this month to “advise on performance-based compensation for executives with shareholder-aligned results.”
Miner IGO was also one of the biggest decliners of the day, falling 4.50 percent to $15.40 after announcing impairment of between $880 million and $980 million for two nickel mines in WA bought for $1. ,3 billion in 2022.
A lone miner saw its share price rise on Monday, with Whitehaven Coal seeing a 2.70 percent rise to $6.83 after the release of its quarterly report.
The company announced a total mine value increase of 19% compared to the March quarter and that it had generated $435 million in cash during the quarter to bring its operations to $4.2 billion this fiscal year.
The other big miners didn’t fare well either, with Santos falling 1.82 percent, Rio Tinto slipping 0.98 percent and BHP 0.57 percent.
It was not all gloom for the ASX on Monday, with the top-performing Medibank rising 3.58 percent to $3.47.
It was followed by Polynovo, which rose 2.84 percent to close at $1.63, and Credit Corp saw its price rise 2.78 percent to close at $21.46.
Westpac was the only one of the big four to experience a decline on Monday, falling 0.14 percent to $21.43.
Meanwhile, Commonwealth Bank saw a 0.53 percent rise, NAB rose 0.74 percent and ANZ rose 0.41 percent.