Sydney Rallies; Job Ads Rise in August

Chandrasekhar Atreya
06 Sep, 2010
New York City

Stocks in Australia rallied after job ad placements in August rose. The placements climbed 2.6% in August. Woolworth plans to sell A$900 million of its retail sites and lease them back. Derivatives

[R]6:00 PM Sydney, Australia – Stocks in Australia rallied after job ad placements in August rose. The placements climbed 2.6% in August. Woolworth plans to sell A$900 million of its retail sites and lease them back. Derivatives’ trading jumps 9% in August.[/R]

Stocks in Australia closed higher after jobs placement ads increased in Australia. A larger than expected increase in private sector jobs in U.S. also lifted the sentiment.

The ASX 200 Index gained 0.76% or 34.30 to close at 4,575.50.

Job advertisements in Australia rose 2.6% in August from July, a private survey shows. The rate saw an increase of 36% in August from a year ago. The ANZ job advertisement series noted that the total number of job ads placed in major metropolitan newspapers and on the internet rose in August to an average of 176,239 a week.

“The pickup in job ads in recent months suggests Australian businesses are confident about the outlook despite an uncertain global economic environment,” ANZ Chief Economist Warren Hogan said in a statement Monday.

Inflation is heading to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s target range’s upper end of 3% following price rises in alcohol, tobacco, and fruit and vegetables, a survey shows.

The TD Securities Melbourne Institute monthly inflation gauge rose 0.2% in August following a 0.1% rise in July and a 0.3% rise in June. The largest contribution to the increase came from price rises for alcohol, tobacco, fruits and vegetables, furniture and furnishings.

Woolworths plans to sell A$900 million of its retail sites from its property portfolio and then lease them back on long-term basis, the company said Monday.

Derivatives trading on the Sydney bourse jumped by at least 9% in August while share trading volumes stayed lackluster compared to a year ago. The Australian Securities Exchange Group confirmed what researcher Investment Trend said in August, contracts-for-difference has taken off in Australia.

ASX, which will lose its monopoly on securities trading later this year, reported a 9% rise in total notional value of all CFD trades to $371.6 million in August, during which 16.3 million contracts were traded.

Forestry projects operator Willmott Forests Ltd has been placed in receivership, following the collapse of managed investment scheme operators Timbercorp and Great Southern.

The company manages more than 56,000 hectares of pine, silky oak and she-oak plantations in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Resource News

YTC Resources reports that NMD001, the first six planned diamond drill holes beneath the Nymagee copper mine, has intersected massive and semi-massive sulfides 50 meters below the deepest mine level.

Andean Resources, Australia’s second-largest gold company by market cap accepted a C$3.6 billion takeover offer from Canada based GoldCorp.

Enterprise Metals said it received assay results of 16 rock chip samples recently collected at Burracoppin in WA.

Rare earth miner, Lynas Corp said it has assay results that show a 19.4% increase in the resource estimates of its Mount Weld project.

Southern Uranium said it has located new high-grade iron outcrops that further advance the iron ore prospects of its Jungle Dam project.

Gainers & Losers

Lynas Corp Ltd led the gainers in the ASX 200 with a rally of 15.35% to A$1.24 followed by Straits Resources Ltd 5.68% to A$1.675 and Mermaid Marine Australia Ltd 5% to A$2.73.

Macquarie Group Ltd led the decliners in the index with a fall of 4.7% to A$35.25 followed by Linc Energy Ltd 3.06% to A$1.745 and AMP Ltd 2.88% to A$5.06.