Market up amid signs of stability

The stockmarket finished higher yesterday, with signs that some stability may be returning to a market rocked by concerns over the US mortgage market.
The ASX 200 index closed 56.8 points higher at 5989.4 on a muted lead from Wall Street and mixed commodity prices. The All Ordinaries rose 52.1 to 5978.6.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange the September share price index contract closed 66 points higher at 5968 on a volume of 33,442 contracts.
An adviser with Bell Potter, Stuart Smith, said there were signs that some stability had returned to the local stockmarket, despite a choppy day's trade.
"You had sellers from yesterday and you had buyers from yesterday not finished," Mr Potter said.
"If you've got a mixture of the buyers and sellers yesterday competing and the buyer's winning, yes, I'd agree there's stability and therefore confidence."
Mr Smith said the market was still very cheap and was likely to attract speculators, while investors would probably wait a bit.
"Our average p/e for the ASX 200 as of last Friday was 13.26, and that's the lowest it's been in 12 months. You've got to say that's good value."
The market leader BHP Billiton picked up 60c to $35.50 and its rival miner Rio Tinto rose $1.25 to $86.30.
The banks also improved, with the Commonwealth up 79c to $54.15, National Australia Bank up 31c to $40.10, ANZ up 32c to $28.90 and Westpac up 28c to $26.63. Suncorp was down 15c to $19.17 and St George up 9c to $34.59.
Merging banks did well. Bendigo was up 23c at $15.92 and Adelaide was up 37c, at $15.44.
Macquarie Bank continued its recovery, rising $1.10 to $71.85, and its Babcock & Brown picked up 52c to $21.82.
The other infrastructure investor Allco Finance Group rose 28c to $9.20 after reporting a 118 per cent rise in annual earnings and forecasting further strong profit growth.
The television network Seven reported a 62 per cent lift in underlying annual profit and announced it could buy back 10 per cent of its shares, which rose 12c to $11.11.
Ten Network firmed 2c to $2.63, PBL fell 11c to $16.88, News Corp lost 23c to $27.07, its non-voting scrip down 25c to $25.42, and Fairfax Media was up 2c to $4.73.
Shares in the engineering group Downer EDI jumped 44c, or 8.51 per cent, to $5.61 as it forecast improved earnings after reporting a recently downgraded $101.5 million annual profit.
Woodside Petroleum fell 10c to $41 even on a falling oil price, but Santos rose 9c to $11.89. Oil Search fell 14c to $3.26 after releasing a disappointing half-yearly report.
Beach Petroleum was down 2c to $1.14 after announcing three new exploration deals: it is earning 80 per cent of two blocks in T/38P offshore Tasmania in the Bass Strait; 50 per cent in neighbouring T/39; and 20 per cent of AWE's Taranaki Basin project off New Zealand. AWE was up 6c to $3.16.
Newcrest Mining rose 5c to $25.06, Newmont fell 89c to $4.96 and Lihir was up a penny to $2.91.
The retailer Woolworths advanced 16c to $27.44, and Coles reversed 23c to $13.80.
Market turnover was 2 billion shares worth $5.58 billion.