Australia 200 afternoon report: 27 February 2025

The ASX 200 trades 21 points (0.25%) higher at 8261 as of 2.15pm (AEDT).

After a turbulent two weeks, the Australia 200 has enjoyed a calmer session today following Nvidia's much-anticipated fourth quarter (Q4) 2025 earnings report, which received a muted response.

Nvidia results fail to excite markets

As has become customary, Nvidia surpassed expectations, reporting earnings per share (EPS) of $0.89 versus $0.84 expected and revenue of $39.3 billion compared to $38.04 billion expected.

Nvidia Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jensen Huang stated, 'Demand for Blackwell is amazing as reasoning AI adds another scaling law - increasing compute for training makes models smarter, and increasing compute for long thinking makes the answer smarter.'

Despite this, Nvidia's share price fell 1.5% in after-hours trading to $130.80, approximately 15% below its record high of $153.13 earlier this year.

Defensive sectors buffer February's decline

Returning to the Australia 200, after a promising start to the month and with one full session left in February, the index is down 3.12% month-to-date, set to wipe out much of January's 4.57% gain.

The decline this month is largely due to earnings disappointment within the financial sector, which has dropped 4.80% this month, along with the health care sector (-6.11%) and information technology (IT) Sector (-9.53%). As is often the way during turbulent times, the defensive consumer staples and utilities sectors have provided a buffer, rising by 4.42% and 4%, respectively.

Australia 200 stocks

Earnings season highlights

• AP Eagers jumped 20.72% to $15.04 after reporting revenue of $11.2 billion, an increase of 13.6% from the previous period
• Coles surged 5.1% to $20.69 as sales rose 3.7% to $23.1 billion, driven by its supermarket division, which offset declines in its liquor division
• Qantas climbed 3.94% to $9.24 following the announcement of an underlying profit of $1.39 billion for first half (1H) 2025 and a special dividend of $0.165 per share
• IDP Education saw its shares dive 11% to $10.48 after reporting a sharp fall in earnings and warning of a contraction in the international educational market due to reduced migration

After an intense two weeks of earnings, reporting season has entered the home straight with reports due tomorrow from companies including Life360, Star Entertainment, TPG and Harvey Norman.

Australia 200 technical analysis

This week, the Australia 200 has extended its pullback from the mid-February 8615 high. Encouragingly, the downside momentum has receded, and there are tentative signs of basing ahead of the key support area at 8150 - 8100, which includes multi-month trend channel support and the 200-day moving average.

It remains imperative that the Auutralia 200 holds above this support region and above 8000 to keep its upside ambitions intact.

If the ASX 200 were to see a sustained break below 8150 - 8100 and then below the final bastion of medium-term support at 8050 - 8000 (from the December low), it would open the way for the sell-off to extend towards 7600.

Australia 200 daily chart

• _{Source: TradingView. The figures stated are as of 27 February 2025. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. This report does not contain and is not to be taken as containing any financial product advice or financial product recommendation.}