Australian Stock Market Report – Midday 7/29/13

MID SESSION REPORT
(12.30pm)

The Australian market started off slightly higher today, after the US stocks closed slightly higher on Friday ahead of a busy week for news and economic numbers. This week for the Aussie market it will all be about reading the data out of the US and watching out for Chinese Manufacturing numbers mid-week.

At lunchtime in the East the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) was up by 4 points

The major banks, healthcare stocks and the property trusts holding the market up as more weakness creeps into energy, mining and industrials stocks.
All the major news in the early session came from the materials sector with market heavy weight Rio Tinto (RIO) announcing it had sold its 80% stake in Northparkes copper and gold mine in central New South Wales for US$820M to China Molybdenum Co (CMOC). This sale has been on the cards for some time with a few Aussie suitors being mentioned in the press and it is in-line with RIO's current strategy to focus on its large money making core businesses RIO share price up 0.3% and rival BHP Billiton Limited (BHP) only slightly lower.

OZ Minerals (OZL) today announced an estimated non-cash asset impairment of $200- $240Million. The impairment was due to lower prices for its ore that impacted on prior capitalised works and higher waste volumes at its Prominent Hill operations over the last 6months. Investors will have to wait until the 14th of August to see what other plans the firm has when it releases OZ's profit report. Today OZL share prices started down 2.2% now down 1.2%. Iron ore miner, Fortescue Metals (FMG) up 0.5% as the spot iron ore price out of China still moved higher now at US$132.60 a tonne.

Gold producer, Newcrest Mining (NCM) down slightly to $12.29, while small cap gold producer Evolution Mining (EVN) off over 4% after telling the market it now expects to write down the value of its gold assets by between $350-400Million for the 2013 financial year.

The S&P/ASX energy sector was weaker off 1% even with the US$ NYMEX oil price still holding around US$104.30 a barrel

S&P/ASX 200 Financials up 0.51% with The four major banks jumped by around 1%, with Westpac (WBC) the standout up over 1.25%.

The Australian dollar holding up well now at 0.9272 US cents and 0.6976 Euro.

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