BHP and Rio set a cracking pace

Mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto led the sharemarket higher yesterday as it closed in on new highs.
The two miners accounted for almost half the day's rise as commodities continue to consolidate, lifting sentiment in the sector.
At the close the ASX200 had improved 21 points to 5331 and the All Ordinaries 22.5 to 5276.4.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the December share price index contract rose 28 to 5331.
Macquarie Equities client adviser David Halliday said the resources sector had been the barometer of sentiment in the market for the past 12 months.
"They are such a big part of the market that when they have a big day they can influence sentiment more broadly," he said.
"Commodities have consolidated and started to move higher, which has given the market confidence that we're not about to see a huge rout in commodity prices, which people were scared of five or six weeks ago."
He said many analysts had forecasts for commodity prices for 2007 well below where the spot prices were today.
"If that persists for the rest of the year then the only outcome is for earnings upgrades," Mr Halliday said.
The financial services sector was mostly weaker with only the CBA among the four majors to finish in positive territory, lifting 10c to $47.
NAB was 10c weaker at $37.85, Westpac 10c at $23.11 and ANZ 1c at $27.80.
Of the insurers, QBE lost 39c to $24.20, AMP was off 1c at $9.38 and AXA fell 10c to $6.51.
PBL surged 42c to $19.85 as speculation continued that it would look to sell off the Nine Network, ACP Magazines and ninemsn to a private equity group.
Printing group PMP, which eased 1.5c to $1.855, said its discussions with a private equity group over a possible takeover were in the early stages.
John Fairfax climbed 6c to $4.48 while News Corp backtracked 4c to $28.66 and its non voters 5c to $27.60.
Retailer David Jones rose 10c to $3.73, supermarket group Woolworths was 9c richer at $20.84 while Coles Myer retreated 9c to $14.17.
Telstra, now trading free of any rights to T3, crept up 1c to $3.64 while Optus owner Singapore Telecommunications eased 2c to $2.07. Unwired was stalled at 31.5c.
After the market closed, the board of Australian Pharmaceutical announced it was rejecting the takeover offer from Sigma. API rose 1c at $2.72 and Sigma was steady at $2.71.
Builder Multiplex firmed 1c to $3.49 on British weekend reports it was closer to a settlement in its dispute with the owner of London's Wembley Stadium.
Among gold stocks, Newmont climbed 26c to $5.81, Newcrest improved 13c to $22.65 and Lihir found 8c at $3.11.
Arrow Energy rose 4.5c to 93.5c after reporting it had added 13 per cent to its reserves base in the Basin Bowen.
Minara rose 33c to $5.29.
The company released its September quarter report, featuring a record 9202 tonnes of nickel produced.
The top traded stock by volume was explorer and nickel miner Australian Mines , up 1c to 6.9c on trade of 75.9 million shares.