Australian Stock Market Report - Closing

Local stocks managed to hold on to six month highs today and post a small win, thanks to strength from the miners. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) rose 7.1pts or 0.2pct to 4869.6 while the S&P/ASX 200 Index (XJO) firmed by 6.5pts or 0.1pct to 4778.4.

Firmer commodity prices boosted the materials sector, which was the best performing. Index leader BHP Billiton (BHP) firmed by 0.9pct to $45.82 while Rio Tinto (RIO) gained 0.1pct to $86.78. Iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) increased by 1.2pct to $6.83.

Financial stocks however were lower. Westpac (WBC) fell by 0.4pct to $22.61 while the NAB (NAB) was lower by 0.7pct to $24.05 and the ANZ (ANZ) eased by 0.3pct to $23.63. Shares in the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) fell 0.3pct to $50.87 while Macquarie Group (MQG) was up 0.6pct to $37.22.

Fashion retailer Noni B (NBL) fell 6.1pct to $1.07 on a profit warning. Harvey Norman (HVN) eased by 0.7pct to $2.98 while JB Hi-Fi (JBH) was off 0.2pct to $17.85. David Jones (DJS) gained 0.7pct to $4.48.

Telstra (TLS) today indicated that negotiations with the government over the National Broadband Network are taking longer than expected. TLS shares closed steady at $2.77.

Foster’s Group (FGL) closed steady at $5.62 after informing the market plans to demerge its wine and beer operations are progressing well.

Qantas (QAN) shares dropped 0.4pct to $2.58. The airline today said strong domestic traffic had more than offset capacity cuts caused by the grounding of its A380 fleet.

There was no economic data released today and the Australian dollar finished the day’s trade at US99.71c. It was also worth £0.6441 and €75.92c.

On the market overall, a total of 1.95 billion shares were traded, worth $3.55 billion. 609 were up, 521 were down and 379 were unchanged.

At 4.15pm AEDT on the ASX24, the futures contract was at 4777, up 11pts.

Ahead tonight, economic growth (GDP) figures and existing home sales data are released in the US.