Staff writersUpdated July 16, 2026 — 5:23pm,first published July 16, 2026 — 5:18amThe Australian sharemarket treaded water on Thursday as losses by world’s biggest miner BHP and energy stocks offset gains by the big four banks and a rally by wealth giant AMP.The S&P/ASX 200 finished down less than 1 point at 8840.70, with seven of its 11 industry sectors in positive territory. The choppy session came after the ASX added 0.4 per cent on Wednesday. The Australian dollar was trading at US69.96¢ in late afternoon, down 0.1 per cent.The broad US stock market got a lift from another report showing inflation slowed last month.APBHP finished the day 2.3 per cent lower, following Wednesday’s 3.2 per cent gain. The mining giant posted solid full-year production figures in the morning, but had a weaker final quarter and warned copper output will fall in the year ahead as grades decline at its flagship Chilean mines.Copper production on a 12-month basis to June 30 was down 3 per cent year-on-year at close to 2 million tonnes, while iron ore output rose 1 per cent to a record 264.7 million tonnes, BHP said. It expects copper output to fall to as low as 1.65 million tonnes this fiscal year as ore grades deteriorate at its South American operations, including the giant Escondida mine in Chile.The red metal has become BHP’s largest earnings contributor and is a key part of its broader strategic pivot to so-called future-facing commodities on expectations it will benefit from electrification, demand for AI infrastructure and the energy transition.Fellow iron ore heavyweights Fortescue (down 1.1 per cent) and Rio Tinto (down 0.4 per cent) were also lower.Gold miners slid lower with the price of the precious metal dipping to be trading just above $US4000 per ounce, as traders weighed softer-than-expected inflation data against escalating attacks in the Middle East for clues to the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate path. Evolution Mining fell 3 per cent and Newmont shed 1 per cent.Energy stocks also declined amid profit taking, even as crude oil extended its gains as the US launched fresh strikes on Iran, raising concerns that Middle East tensions will further disrupt energy supplies. Woodside Energy lost 1.5 per cent and Santos fell 1.8 per cent. Coal producers also struggled, with Whitehaven Coal falling 2.8 per cent and New Hope losing 1.1 per cent.Financial stocks were stronger, with the Commonwealth Bank up 1.8 per cent, National Australia Bank climbing 1.3 per cent, Westpac edging up 0.1 per cent and ANZ Bank adding 0.7 per cent.AMP soared 9.8 per cent after upping its profit forecast. The wealth manager now expects first-half underlying net profit after tax to be between $170 million and $180 million, thanks to stronger earnings from its China partnerships and higher returns from its investments.Technology stocks were mixed in early trade, with software makers Xero (up 1.2 per cent), WiseTech (up 2.1 per cent) and Technology One (up 1.2 per cent) recovering from Wednesday’s losses, while AI data centre operator NextDC gave back some of its recent gains, falling 2.6 per cent.On Wall Street overnight, the S&P 500 rose 0.4 per cent after flipping between modest gains and losses through the day, and finished back within 0.5 per cent of its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones added 150 points, or 0.3 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.6 per cent.Investment giant BlackRock helped lead the market with a rise of 6.6 per cent after the company behind some of the most popular investment funds reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Laurence Fink said its iShares funds topped $US6 trillion ($8.6 trillion) in assets under management during the quarter, roughly doubling in three years.SpaceX shares slumped to their lowest level since the rocket, satellite, and artificial intelligence company went public, briefly falling below their initial public offering price, as investor fanfare quickly evaporated in the month since its trading debut.The stock fell 0.6 per cent to close at $US135.27 on Wednesday, ending the day just above the $US135 per share level that SpaceX sold them to investors at last month as part of a record $US86 billion offering after slumping below the key level intraday. It was the fourth consecutive day of declines for the stock.The broad US stock market got a lift from another report showing inflation slowed last month. It said inflation at the wholesale level slowed to 5.5 per cent from 6 per cent in May, and it was much better than the acceleration that economists expected.The day before, a separate report said inflation that US consumers are feeling was also not as bad as economists expected last month.Such numbers take pressure off the Federal Reserve, which is considering raising interest rates. Higher rates would keep a lid on inflation, but they would also slow the economy and hurt prices for all kinds of investments.Following the inflation report, traders see just a 10 per cent chance that the Fed will raise its main interest rate at its next meeting in a couple of weeks. That’s down from the nearly 42 per cent probability they saw on Monday, before the inflation reports, according to data from CME Group.Also helping to pull down expectations was a speech from John Williams, president of the New York Fed. He said that “there are encouraging reasons to expect that inflation has peaked and should edge down in coming quarters”.Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, meanwhile, gave few clues on what to expect in testimony before a Senate committee. “Any central banker would be happy to have data going in the right direction,” he said about this week’s encouraging inflation reports, but “these are all imperfect measures of the state of underlying inflation.”The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.55 per cent from 4.58 per cent late Tuesday and from 4.62 per cent the day before.From our partners