Australian Stock Market Report – Midday January 9, 2015

An office worker is reflected in the window of the Australian Securities Exchange building displaying the ASX50 curve for Wednesday in central Sydney August 7, 2013. Australian shares skidded 1.3 percent on Wednesday, its biggest fall in five weeks, hit by sharp falls in miners and financials as regional markets tracked a soft Wall Street lead amid uncertainty about the U.S. Federal Reserve's stimulus programme REUTERS/Daniel Munoz (AUSTRALIA - Tags: BUSINESS)

 The Australian sharemarket is off to its best start of the week with the ASX 200 Index up by 1 per cent. This is ahead of the single most important piece of data; the US non-farm payrolls (a monthly jobs report) out tonight at 12.30am AEDT.

 All industries are improving at lunch with the energy sector doing best following a firmer oil price. Woodside Petroleum (WPL) is up 2.3 per cent while Santos (STO) is up 2.6 per cent. Energy stocks are still down around4.5 per cent this week.

 Mining stocks are higher despite a fall in the iron ore and gold price overnight. The world's largest miner BHP Billiton (BHP) is up 2.3 per cent while the smaller Rio Tinto (RIO) is up 1.4 per cent. $1bn gold miner Regis Resources (RRL) is up 3.4 per cent after confirming it's on track to deliver its 2015 gold production targets.

 Telstra (TLS) is up 0.3 per cent and hit a fresh 13.5 year high of $6.07 per share this morning. Australia's sixth largest company has improved for four consecutive years and has been helped by its close to 5 per cent dividend yield. TLS shares have doubled in value since the end of 2010.

 Qantas (QAN) announced the appointment of Todd Sampson to the airline's board as a non-executive director. Mr Sampson also sits on the Fairfax Board and has a marketing background. The airline industry has benefited from the recent slump in oil with jet fuel prices down 46 per cent over the past year. This is significant considering that fuel is typically an airline's primary expense. QAN had a $4.5bn fuel bill last year.

 Retail spending rose by just 0.1 per cent in November according to a monthly trade report released at 11.30am AEDT this morning. Local shares barely reacted however as retailers had already warned that consumers shopped later than usual over Christmas.

 Volume remains a little light with 479.6bn shares traded worth $1.4bn. 463 stocks are up, 265 are down and 264 are unchanged.

 The Australian dollar is firmer and buys US$0.813, €0.689. £0.538 and ¥97.4.

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