Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Miners, banks - is there nothing else in this market?

Australian stocks ended the day on a high note, thanks to the resources and financial sectors.
The ASX200 index rose 35.2 points to 5352.3, while the All Ordinaries set a new closing record, up 36.3 to 5324.7.
"It has been a pretty solid session," said CMC Markets chief analyst David Land. "Most of the weight on the overall index was provided by the big diversified resources."
The world's biggest miner, BHP Billiton gained 41c to $27.93, while rival Rio Tinto put on $1.81 to end at $78.56.
Woodside Petroleum was up 60c at $38.21, Oil Search rose 2c to $3.46 and Santos jumped 24c to $10.51. It has 16.66 per cent of a gas find announced yesterday by 83.33 per cent owner and operator Mosaic, which was up a whole 0.5c to 16.5c gas announced at oil find
"There was quite a bit of life in the finance sector as well … with some of the banks doing quite well, as well as finance companies," Mr Land added.
ANZ improved 27c to $28.42, the Commonwealth climbed 14c to $47.32, NAB rose 11c to $38.06 and Westpac ended 10c higher at $23.62.
One of the biggest movers of the day was Australia's largest listed travel agent, Flight Centre, ending $3.20 higher at $16.85, after it unveiled a move to privatise its operations, citing a lack of long-term vision from the sharemarket.
In the US on Tuesday night technology stocks fell as a disappointing outlook from the No.1 maker of chips for mobile phones, Texas Instruments Inc, sparked concerns for corporate profits, but the Dow Jones industrial average was higher.
Also, an announcement on the US central bank's deliberations on interest rates is expected in the early hours of this morning.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 10.97 at 12,127.88, another record. The Nasdaq Composite fell 10.72 to 2,344.84.
Telstra put on a zack to $3.72 and was the most traded stock of the day with 77.92 million shares worth $289 million traded.
Media was mixed, Fairfax losing 2c to $4.94, News Corp slipping 14c to $28.68, its non-voters 17c to $27.56, but PBL managed a gain of 15c to $19.52.
Qantas advanced 5c to $4.27, while brewer Foster's was also up the same amount at $6.34.
Retailer Coles Myer stepped back 19c to $13.26 as larger rival Woolworths rose 15c to $20.55 and David Jones added 7c to $3.67.
Miller's Retail fell 3c to $1.72 but Harvey Norman was up 4c to $3.72 and the ever reliable Noni B was up 13c at $4.24.
The price of gold in Sydney closed $US5.32 higher at $US583.95 per fine ounce.
Gold miners also showed gains, Newcrest rose 45c to $22.80 and Lihir Gold firmed 5c to $2.78. Bendigo was down 0.5c at 98.5c.
Stockfeed and salt company Ridley Corp hit a 52-week low of $1.10 but finished steady at $1.115.
Integrated kaolin clay producer Minerals Corp was up 0.5 to 1.9c on 39 million traded.
Preliminary market turnover was 1.49 billion shares, worth a combined $5.13 billion, with 591 companies ending higher, 533 lower and 338 unchanged.

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