ASX CLOSE: BHP closes at its highs for the year

Thursday 24th December 2009

Across Asia, regional indices are broadly higher as we head into Christmas despite the relatively flat finish on Wall Street. Returning from its holiday yesterday, the Nikkei 225 is the region's best performer, higher by 1.3% while the Kospi is up 1.1%. The Shanghai Composite and the Hang Seng are also enjoying solid sessions to be trading in positive territory by 1.3% and 0.6% respectively.

In Australia, the ASX 200 also saw some decent gains, closing higher by 1.1% at 4790.90.

It might not have been the Santa Claus rally that some analysts had been looking for, but we did hit Christmas on the front foot. Coming into this last week before Christmas, the ASX 200 was down 1% for the month and it has only been this week's 3% surge that has resembled anything like a Santa Claus rally.

Despite the thin trading today, strong performances from the materials, energy and financial sectors were enough to see our market move nicely to the upside.

Last night we saw the USD behaving like a true currency, trading lower on disappointing economic news and this helped buoy the commodities complex. Gold, crude oil, and base metals all moved convincingly higher and materials names went along for the ride. That theme played out in Australia today with BHP closing at its highs for the year finishing up by 1.3%. Fellow heavyweight Rio Tinto closed higher by 0.3%. Gold miners Lihir Gold and Newcrest Mining were clear beneficiaries of the firmer gold price, ending firmer by 2.5% and 0.9% respectively.

Financials could have been expected to trade weaker today given the offshore leads from their US counterparts, but a favourable resolution with the NZ government over disputed tax liabilities saw advances from the Big-4 push the sector % higher. ANZ and Westpac were the standouts, closing higher by 3.1% and 2.9% respectively

Crude oil prices continued to move higher in the Asian session to be trading around the US$77.30 level, inturn helping the energy sector post gains of 0.6%. Amongst the major names, Woodside and Oil Search finished stronger by 0.3% and 1.5%, while Santos ended weaker by 0.3%.

Trade next week should be very thin with many market participants on holidays with meaningful volumes not likely to resume until the second half of January.

Prices are in AUD unless otherwise stated.
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