SYDNEY, March 23, 2026, 04:10 AEDT
Australian shares head into the new week on shaky ground. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 ended Friday at 8,428.4, while Brent crude settled at $112.19 a barrel, its highest close since July 2022. 1
The immediate local test is Wednesday’s February consumer price index, or CPI, Australia’s main inflation gauge, due at 11:30 a.m. AEDT. It lands just days after the Reserve Bank of Australia raised the cash rate by a quarter-point to 4.1% in a 5-4 vote, with Commonwealth Bank economist Belinda Allen saying, “The domestic data flow alone justified a rate hike today.” 2
Offshore, Tuesday’s flash PMIs, surveys of business activity, will offer the first broad read on how the Middle East conflict is hitting corporate sentiment. Wall Street ended Friday with the S&P 500 down for a fourth straight week, a reminder that the ASX is not trading this shock in isolation. 3
The resources complex has fresh company-specific risk as well. Rio Tinto temporarily shut its Amrun and Andoom bauxite mines in northeast Queensland as Cyclone Narelle hit, and Reuters reported the stock fell as much as 4% after the closure. 4
Fuel is another pressure point. Energy Minister Chris Bowen said on Sunday there were no immediate plans to ration supply, but Australia had 38 days of petrol and 30 days of diesel and jet fuel in stock after six shipments from Asia were cancelled. 5
That matters well beyond service stations. Reuters reported last week that smaller miners and farmers were already changing operations or adjusting deliveries as the diesel squeeze deepened, with CLSA analyst Baden Moore warning Australia was “entirely dependent on those imports.” 6
Woodside and Santos are likely to stay in focus for a different reason. Reuters reported on Friday that Asia spot LNG prices have doubled to three-year highs since the war began, even as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese asked Treasury to model a windfall gas tax ahead of the May budget, a move industry CEO Samantha McCulloch called “the worst possible time” for a new levy. 7
But the week could still turn quickly. A milder CPI reading would cool some of the pressure created by last week’s RBA hike, while a renewed jump in oil would do the opposite; IG analyst Tony Sycamore said President Donald Trump’s 48-hour threat over Hormuz had put a “ticking time bomb of elevated uncertainty” over markets. 8
