Australian Stock Market Report – Afternoon 11/12/13

EVENING REPORT
(5pm AEDT)

The Australian share market ran out of steam in the afternoon session, managing only a modest daily gain, despite record highs being reached on Wall Street overnight.

At one point the All Ordinaries Index was comfortably trading above 5400 points, but managed to close higher by only 6 points to 5386.8.

Financial stocks once again came under pressure while Rio Tinto (RIO) was also a poor performer.

Standouts came from explosives maker Orica (ORI) and Incitec Pivot (IPL). IPL's FY result came in line with expectations, sending its share price up 7.3 per cent to $2.80 while ORI continued its good run on the back of its FY13 result released yesterday, rising 8.2 per cent to $23.60.

News Corp (NWS) fell 3.3 per cent to $18.40 despite reporting a quarterly profit which was back in the black. NWS Australian newspapers dragged on the result, with revenue down US$60 million to US$2.07 billion in the period.

The NAB business confidence index fell from +11.6 points to +5.5 points in October. The business conditions index improved from minus 4.3 points to an 9-month high of minus 3.7 points. The survey was conducted post-election from October 25 to October 31.

The average credit card balance fell by 2.7 per cent in smoothed terms in the year to September, the biggest drop in 19 years of records. Use of credit card limits is at 11½ year lows. Usage of credit and debit cards is at record highs. Average fees on MasterCard or Visa purchases have hit record lows.

On the market overall, a total of 2 billion shares changed hands, worth $4.6 billion. 424 were up, 494 were down and 379 were unchanged.

The Aussie dollar is weaker at US93.31c.

No economic data is scheduled for release in the US tonight.

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