Australian Stock Market Report – Afternoon 3-25-13

EVENING REPORT
(5.30pm AEDT)

The tiny island nation of Cyprus appears to have secured a bailout, reaching a deal with its international creditors. It means Cyprus won't have to leave the Eurozone which has alleviated some contagion fears. As part of the deal, - Cyprus's second largest bank will be closed and the government will receive €10 billion in financing from the Eurozone. Today's breakthrough saw the Euro rise, along with Asian markets today.

The All Ordinaries Index was higher by almost 21pts or 0.4%, after falling by almost 3% over the course of last week.

Financial stocks all moved higher, with shares in Westpac (WBC) firmer by 1.7% to $31.01.

Construction giant Leighton Holdings (LEI) clawed back some lost ground, following the appointment of independent director Bob Humphris as the company's new Chairman. LEI shares slumped on Friday when three board members including the Chairman resigned. LEI rose 4.3% today to $21.07.

Westfield (WDC) shares rose 1.7% to $10.94 today after announcing it will sell a 49.9% stake in six shopping malls in Florida to O'Connor Capital Partners for $700 million. WDC will remain as property, leasing and development manager.

Elsewhere today retailers were generally firmer. Shares in Myer (MYR) lifted by 2.4% to $3.04 and JB Hi-Fi (JBH) was up 1.7% to $14.89.

The Australian dollar ended the day's session at US104.58c, €80.25c and £0.6861.

On the market overall, a total of 1.7 billion shares were traded, worth 4.1 billion. 444 were up, 513 were down and 373 were unchanged.

Ahead tonight, the Midwest manufacturing is released with the National activity index and the Dallas Fed manufacturing index.

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