Market Wrap / Wednesday whiplash

After a morning surge, the S&P/ASX200 progressively lost ground this Wednesday afternoon, to settle at 8213.30 points, down 0.2%.

This was illustrated in the property sector, which made some early gains before ending the day fairly flat.

Ingenia Communities ended the trading session in the red, after it increased its FY25 guidance in the last trading hour of yesterday.

In the Telco space, Telstra announced it will spend $700 million over seven years to deploy artificial intelligence across its entire business according to a report from the Financial Review. However, the stock did not make waves on the market.

Another sector dragging the market down was IT, with WiseTech leading the way and losing 3.7% during the day. 

Elsewhere, the materials sector stayed flat, but Pilbara Minerals soared 4.1% after the West Australian government announced loans to support miners in their energy transition projects. Arafura rare earths' shares climbed up after securing $200 million in funding from the government's National Reconstruction Fund. Elsewhere, Guzman y Gomez rose on a broker upgrade, Baby Bunting rallied after a trading update and AVJennings skyrocketed after Singapore-listed developer and investor Ho Bee Land launched a $391 million takeover proposal.

Tonight, investors will be waiting for the US CPI data for December, before we get local labour force numbers tomorrow.