AU Morning Wrap: Woodside, BHP, Whitehaven Drive the ASX 0.6% Lower

Stocks and bond yields fell Thursday, pressured by weak corporate earnings reports and economic data that reinforced investors' recession fears.

Major indexes dropped at the opening bell, recovered much of their losses shortly after midday and tumbled again in afternoon trading, snapping a two-day lull when New York-listed shares barely budged.

Shares in Woodside Energy retreated 1.4 per cent following a sales drop in the March quarter compared to the prior three months amid a decline in production. The oil and gas producer maintained its guidance for output for the full year.

BHP Group fell 1.6 per cent after cutting production targets for its Australian nickel and Chilean copper mines and flagging that iron ore and coking coal divisions were headed toward the lower end of target ranges.

Shares in Whitehaven Coal were swept 0.7 per cent lower after it recorded a 24 per cent fall in coal prices in the first quarter, compared with the three months to December, and produced lower volumes of coal.

All the major banks were on the back foot, with CBA, NAB and Westpac 1.8 per cent lower. ANZ slipped 1.6 per cent.

Tech stocks rose 0.6 per cent.

Managed sales of produced coal dropped 4 per cent to 4.1Mt in the period. The company is sitting on $2.7 billion in net cash after a $552 million tax payment and returning $373 million of capital to shareholders during the March quarter.

It has bought back $1 billion worth of shares since last year.

Sales fell to $US4.33 billion for the first three months of 2023, from $US5.16 billion in the last quarter of 2022, but were 81 per cent above a year earlier.