Australian Markets Report

Provided by The Australian Investor

Wednesday 10th October 2001

A late rally yesterday afternoon pushed the Australian market into positive territory as continual uncertainty fueled by the US and British attacks on Afghanistan made investors nervous. The All Ordinaries gained 11.9 points (0.4 per cent) to 3087.7 while the S&P/ASX 200 advanced 13.1 points (0.4 per cent) to 3153.

Leading the recovery were telecommunication stocks, with the telecommunications index jumping 25 points (2.2 per cent) to 1167.5. Telstra regained 14 cents (2.7 per cent) to $5.25, Austar surged 6 cents (22 per cent) to 30 cents after announcing it would be launching interactive television with its Pay-TV services and Singapore Telecommunications gained 3 cents to $1.94

Resource stocks pushed forward, the resource index climbing 14 points (1 per cent) to 1359.8. Rio Tinto gained 74 cents (2.3 per cent) to $32.80, WMC jumped 18 cents (2.4 per cent) to $7.79 while Resolute Mining surged another 5 cents (9.8 per cent) to 54 cents after announcing on Friday it would expand the activities of its Golden Pride gold-mine in Tanzania. Not faring as well were Iluka Resources down 9 cents (2.4 per cent) to $3.61, Lihir Gold down 5 cents (4 per cent) to $1.21 and Newcrest Mining down 7 cents to $3.55.

Media stocks made a small recovery after a disastrous Monday, the media index up 99.6 points (0.4 per cent) to 24592.6. Western Australian Newspapers jumped 11 cents (2.2 per cent) to $5.17, Austereo gained 3 cents to $1.98 while Fairfax lost 9 cents to $3.23.

The banking sector remained sluggish, ANZ dropped 46 cents (2.7 per cent) to $16.45, the Commonwealth Bank lost 35 cents to $26.94 while the Bank of WA gained 13 cents (3.5 per cent) to $3.85 and Westpac jumped 18 cents to $13.94

Leighton Holdings gained 39 cents (3.7 per cent) to $10.79 after announcing it had been awarded a $100 million rail contract with the Indonesia government. Coles Myer gained a further 33 cents (4.7 per cent) to $7.40 after its $333 million profit result while fellow retailer Country Road plummeted 20 cents (14.3 per cent) to $1.20.

Among the other movers were Energy Developments up 23 cents (3.2 per cent) to $7.40, Southcorp up 22 cents (3.2 per cent) to $7.28 and Caltex up 3 cents (3.4 per cent) to 99 cents.

- Industrials

The S&P/ASX 200 Industrials index gained 16.6 points (0.3 per cent) to 5451.7

- Resources

The S&P/ASX 200 Resources index gained 15.2 points (1.1 per cent) to 1377

- Gold

The gold index dropped 2.2 points to 886.4

- AUD

At 1600 local time the Aussie dollar was trading at:

$US 0.5066 up from 0.5055
Euro 0.5501 down from 0.551
Yen 60.75 up from 60.7
$NZ $1.2169down from $1.2174
Stg 0.3441 up from 0.3413

- Asian Markets

In TOKYO, The Nikkei dropped 194.1 points (1.9 per cent) to 10111.7

In HONG KONG, The Hang Seng gained 346.2 points (3.5 per cent) to 10314 by the end of the first session

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