Australian Markets Update

Provided by The Australian Investor

Friday 12th October 2001

The Australia market was back in force yesterday as solid gains in the media and resource sectors pushed Australian indices closer to pre-September 11 values. Positive economic data included a 0.1% drop in the unemployment rate and an 8.1 per cent increase in engineering work pushed the market further forward in afternoon trading.

The All Ordinaries gained 59.4 points (1.9 per cent) to 3133.1 while the S&P/ASX 200 gained 62.2 points (2 per cent) to 3199.2.

Media shares made a massive comeback, the media index surging 1496.2 points (6.1 per cent) to 26054.7. Following the News Corporation AGM, News Corp shares skyrocketed 91 cents (7.1 per cent) to $13.65 suggesting whatever Rupert had to say in Adelaide must have been inspiring. Fairfax surged 15 cents (4.6 per cent) to $3.38, Ten Network jumped 7 cents (4.3 per cent) to $1.73 and PBL gained 33 cents (3.7 per cent) to $9.33.

The resource sector was booming, the resource index up 41.4 points (3.1 per cent) to 1386.2. Rio Tinto jumped $1.46 (4.6 per cent) to $33.28, Oil Search skyrocketed 13 cents (13 per cent) to $1.13, Sons of Gwalia surged 37 cents (5.4 per cent) to $7.29, Woodside gained 53 cents (3.9 per cent) to $14.25 while Ottor Mines stock increased by 66 per cent to 18 cents after receiving a takeover offer from Normandy Mining.

The banking sector also shared in the gains, the bank index up 145.6 points (1.8 per cent) to 8426.6. NAB jumped 67 cents (2.4 per cent) to $28.82, Commonwealth Bank gained 55 cents (2 per cent) to $27.60 while Macquarie Bank gained 69 cents to $38.50

Among the other movers were Caltex, which surged a further 7 cents (6.2 per cent) to $1.19, National Food which jumped 15 cents (6 per cent) to $2.67, Boral which dropped 17 cents (5 per cent) to $3.25, QBE retreated 23 cents (3.8 per cent) to $5.85 while Xanadu Wines surged 4 cents (16.7 per cent) to 25 cents after acquiring rival Norman Wines for only $3.7 million.

- Industrials

The S&P/ASX 200 Industrials index gained 95.5 points (1.8 per cent) to 5525.6

- Resources

The S&P/ASX 200 Resources index gained 46.1 points (3.4 per cent) to 1406.5

- Gold

The gold index dropped 9.5 points to 865.5

- AUD

At 1655 local time the Aussie dollar was trading at:

$US 0.4992 down from 0.502
Euro 0.548 down from 0.5488
Yen 60.05 down from 60.43
$NZ $1.211 down from $1.215
Stg 0.345 up from 0.3444

- Asian Markets

In TOKYO, The Nikkei gained 382.8 points (3.8 per cent) to 10347

In HONG KONG, The Hang Seng gained 327.3 points (3.2 per cent) to 10625.5 by the end of the first session

Comments from our readers

No comments yet