Australian Stock Market Report – Afternoon September 18, 2014

Stock market indices — A pedestrian holding her mobile phone looks at an electronic board showing graphs of various countries' stock market indices outside a brokerage in Tokyo July 22, 2014. Reuters

A slight recovery sees market close in positive territory

 At the end of a day which saw a stronger start the Aussie market has recovered after its lunchtime slump, closing slightly higher and thus ending a six day losing streak. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) closed at 5419 points up 0.14%.

 Detailed employment data today has highlighted the shift away from the mining sector, with over 27,000 jobs lost between June and August. For the first time on record there are more jobs in education than manufacturing. The data revealed that more jobs were created in the last quarter than during any other three month period in a decade, which as a result couldtranslate into more momentum for the economy going forward.

 By the close of market today, the banking and mining sectors proved to be the most volatile performers following the offload of stocks in the two sectors around lunch time, although most financials made a recovery into positive territory by close.

 The mining sector after two days of gains has today dragged the market down following softer commodity prices. Iron ore has decreased 37% thus far this year to currently be trading close to a five-year low. The drop in iron ore demand has seenBHP Billiton (BHP) commit to its cost cutting strategy as BHP today announced it is axing more iron ore jobs, this time at its Nelson Point operations in Port Hedland.

 Furthermore iron ore & steel company Arrium Limited (ARI) saw a significant drop to its share price today after it resumed trading following their announcement of a $289million entitlement offer to its shareholders. The funds will be used to pay off some of its $1.7billion worth of debt. The company's shares were down 14.25cents to $0.42 at midday, and closed at $0.40 down 29.2%.

 Real-estate stocks ended the day outperforming other sectors, aided by data which showed a 6% surge in capital city land prices over the past 12 months. Mirvac Group (MGR) was the best performer in the sector ending up 3.24% to $1.75.

 At close the oil price was trading at US$93.88 down 0.57% on the back of a sluggish week so far. The gold price was trading at US$1,224 down 0.96%, as the US dollar strengthens. A firmer greenback makes gold less affordable to non-US investors and traders.

 At close the Aussie dollar was trading weaker at US$0.8969 off the back of the Federal Reserve's forecasts of higher interest rates over the next two years. Volume was more substantial than usual following index option expiry. 2.2 billion shares were traded worth $6.04bn. 433 stocks finished higher, 509 in the red and 376 were unchanged.

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