Australian Stock Market Report – Afternoon 6/21/13

MARKET CLOSE REPORT

(4.30pm AEST)

Despite the market making an effort to sneak into the black this afternoon, Australian shares still slipped modestly to make it two straight sessions of losses. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) slipped by just 0.4 per cent; a huge improvement from the close to 1.5 per cent falls 30 minutes into the day. The XAO fell 1.1 per cent this week.

The miners and energy stocks were the exceptions today, with a late recovery from the majors, helping to minimise losses. BHP Billiton (BHP) rose by 0.93 per cent while the smaller Rio Tinto (RIO) edged higher by 0.1 per cent.

The big four banks, which make up around a quarter of the market, all ended lower, with Westpac (WBC) the biggest loser today. WBC slumped by 1.56 per cent.

Australia's largest general insurer, QBE Insurance (QBE) slipped by 2.29 per cent after more than 5 per cent gains recorded on Thursday. QBE still jumped by 6.8 per cent today, making it its biggest weekly rise since the start of May.

Plenty of volume exchanged hands today, with 2.7 billion shares traded, worth $6.63 billion. 377 stocks rose, 626 fell and 394 were unchanged.

Looking ahead, in Europe tonight the current account is issued at 6pm (AEST). This measures the difference in value between imported and exported goods, services, income and flows. The ECOFIN meetings will also be taking place in Brussels tonight. This is attended by the finance ministers from European Union member states. It is the broadest financial decision making body across Europe. The council is in charge of coordinate economic policies for all 27 nations.

In the US tonight, quadruple witching will be taking place. This is essentially one of the biggest days of the year for options and futures expiry. Volume is likely to be heavy tonight. This marks the expiry of stock index options, futures, stock options and single stock futures. It only happen four times each year on the third Friday of March, June, September and December.

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