US, BHP give investors heart to resume buying

The Australian sharemarket closed stronger yesterday, boosted by strength in the US markets and a good production report from global miner BHP Billiton.
Uranium stocks also surged in the wake of Kim Beazley's bid to swing the ALP into approving more than just three uranium mines.
On Wall Street overnight the Dow Jones rose 182.67 points to 11,051.05.
"We did see quite a bit of life in the big end of the resources market," said CMC Markets market analyst David Land.
"The production results coming out from BHP certainly reaffirmed the fact that profitability for a number of these miners can continue to grow, particularly those that are reinvesting profits back into growing production."
The ASX200 index was 58 points higher at 4992.4 while the All Ordinaries gained 53.3 to 4959.9. On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the September share price index contract ended day trading 45 points higher at 4960, on a volume of 14,537.
BHP Billiton was up 51c to $27.83 after posting record annual production in aluminium, copper, iron ore, nickel and natural gas, but petroleum production was flat and crude oil output fell.
Rio Tinto was up $1.19 at $73.20.
Oil and gas producer Woodside grew 50c to $43.75.
Papua New Guinea oil producer Oil Search firmed 7c to $4.21 after standing by its full year production forecast despite a second quarter marred by production problems.
Hardman Resources and small Cooper Basin producer Beach were both up 5c at $1.60, though Hardman is well off its highs and Beach quite close to its.
Uranium stocks jumped. Paladin Resources climbed 22c to $4.21 and Uranium Ex firmed 3.5c at 31.5c.
Oxiana spin-off Toro Energy jumped 10.5c to 86c after announcing a $3 million farm-in to Stellar Resources' Gawler Craton uranium-gold-copper prospects. Stellar was up 2c to 42c.
The big banks were all up, NAB improving 67c to $35.27, Westpac 29c to $22.40, ANZ 27c to $25.61, and the Commonwealth 41c to $44.62.
St George was up 23c at $28.73 and acquisitive Bundaberg building society Wide Bay Australia was up 14c to $11.44.
Telstra picked up 2c to $3.84, and Optus-owner Singapore Telecom lost 1c to $2.08.
Retailer Coles Myer was up 20c at $11.70 and supermarket rival Woolworths rose 41c to $19.28.
In the media, News Corp added 33c to $25.69 while its non-voters were also 33c higher at $24.63.
Publishing and Broadcasting lifted 8c to $17.70 and Fairfax improved 3c to $3.97.
Among gold stocks, Newcrest was up 25c to $19.14, Lihir was 6c better off at $2.74 and Newmont was steady at $6.80.
The price of gold in Sydney was $US621.50 a fine ounce, up $US7.85 on Monday's close.
Among other stocks, biotechnology firm Chemeq was steady at 41.5c after being fined $500,000 by the Federal Court for failing to disclose market sensitive information.
Garage-door maker Alesco slid 5c to $8.90 despite delivering a record underlying net profit for 2005-06.
The top traded stock by volume was food company Goodman Fielder, with 30.9 million shares worth $62.53 million changing hands. Goodman Fielder was up 4c to $2.04.
National turnover was 972.4 million shares worth $3.99 billion, with 615 stocks up, 447 down and 318 unchanged.