Australian Stock Market Report – Midday 4-26-13

MID-SESSION REPORT
(12pm AEST)

The Australian market is improving for the fifth straight trading session, making it the second longest winning streak of the year. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) is up 0.1 per cent or 5.00 pts to 5,089.2. As long as the market holds on to the gains, shares would have improved by more than 3.5 per cent this week.

The mining sector is keeping the market positive, with the S&P/ASX 200 Materials index up 2.4 per cent. Australia's two largest miners, BHP Billiton (BHP) and Rio Tinto (RIO) have been improving by between 2.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent in the first half of trade. Gold miner, Newcrest Mining (NCM) is up 5 per cent or 82.5 cents to $17.28, however is still down 21 per cent this calendar year.

Australia's sixth biggest listed company and largest telco, Telstra (TLS) is up 0.9 per cent and is edging nearer to the $5 per share mark. TLS is up by 9.2 per cent in April.

Sleep products specialist, ResMed (RMD) is down 1.2 per cent despite posting a 10 per cent rise in revenue to $353.6M between January and March this year. Investors pushed up the stock however, with gains in excess of 1.3 per cent from Monday through to Wednesday.

Agribusiness, Graincorp (GNC) is up 8 per cent after agreeing to a $3B takeover bid by US food processing firm, Archer Daniels Midland.

No major economic news is scheduled for release today locally, however it is one of the busier days of the month in Japan. Consumer Prices (CPI) fell for the fifth straight month in March, easing by 0.5 per cent. The Bank of Japan faces a tough task to achieve its 2 per cent inflation target.

US and most European markets ended higher overnight. The British economy has managed to avoid recession by growing more than expected between January and March this year. The jobless rate in Spain has cracked through 27 per cent.

At lunch, 791.1M shares have exchanged hands, worth $2.1B. 463 stocks are higher, 347 are in the red while 282 are unchanged.

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