Australian Stock Market Report – Midday 7/11/13

MIDDAY REPORT
(12pm AEST)

• The Australian share market is continuing on its solid run, firmer by another one per cent at lunchtime during Thursday's trade.

• After a choppy session on Wall Street overnight, US stock futures rose after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted that a more "accommodative" monetary policy would continue by the Fed. Markets took those comments to mean that the so-called tapering off of QE3 is still some way off. US yields fell, along with the greenback while our dollar rose and investors bought into our stock market on open.

• Economic data released today shows the official unemployment rate rose in June. 10,300 total jobs were created while the participation rate increased to 65.3 per cent. 15,000 jobs need to be created each month for unemployment to remain steady.
Unemployment rose from 5.5 to 5.7 per cent in June.

• On the market nearly every sector is in the black, with mining stocks leading the way. The gold price has risen further in early Asian trade to be up around US$30 an ounce to US$1280. Shares in Australia's largest listed gold producer Newcrest Mining (NCM) are firmer by 11.3 per cent to $11.07 in the early session.

• Elsewhere financial stocks are also strong however there has been a small switch out of consumer staples stocks.

• On the market overall, a total of 679 million shares have changed hands so far, worth $1.66 billion. 491 are up, 224 are down and 273 are unchanged.

• The Australian dollar received a boost earlier this morning on Chairman Bernanke's comments. The Aussie was holding at a level of US92.62 before the market opened and was at US92.22c before the jobs data was released. At lunchtime in the East, the Aussie is buying US92.32c.

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