Sydney Gains; Wheat Crop Estimate Lifted

Chandrasekhar Atreya
14 Sep, 2010
New York City

Stocks in Australia gained moderately led by mining stocks. Business confidence index surged to a 4-month high in August but still below the record in July a year ago. Wheat output and exports are estimated to surge on good rains. Gillard takes oath as Prime Minister.

[R]6:00 PM Sydney, Australia – Stocks in Australia gained moderately led by mining stocks. Business confidence index surged to a 4-month high in August but still below the record in July a year ago. Wheat output and exports are estimated to surge on good rains. Gillard takes oath as Prime Minister.[/R]

Stocks in Sydney fluctuated but closed moderately higher at the end of the day’s trading, led by mining stocks.

The ASX 200 Index gained 0.25% or 11.60 points to close at 4,626.50.

Business confidence in August rose to four month high but corporate sentiment remained below the euphoric levels recorded late last year.

The confidence index rose to 13 points from 2 recorded in July, according to a survey of more than 530 companies conducted by National Bank of Australia from August 24 to August 31, and released in Sydney Tuesday.

Julia Gillard was sworn in as Prime Minister at the Government House in Canberra as Australia’s first elected woman leader.

Rio Tinto Tuesday announced an upgrade to its Argyle diamond mine in WA. Argyle is currently an open pit operation and the miner expects to spend $803 million to make it an underground operation by 2013. This will also extend the life of the mine which produces pink diamonds by at least 6 more years.

Retirement village operator Aevum Ltd rebuffed the revised higher takeover offer from property developer Stockland Group, which also declared its new revised bid as unconditional and final.

Cullen Resources announced a share repurchase plan for shareholders of 34 million shares at 4.5 cents a share.

Lodestar Minerals was halted after the company works to raise additional capital.

Avenue Resources will begin trading on Wednesday with 17.75 million ordinary shares issued at 20 cents each.

Mermaid Australia was granted a three year contract by the Chevron-operated Gorgon project starting in the second quarter of 2011.

Export of wheat may surge to the highest level in more than a decade after rains boosted this year’s harvest, according to revised predictions of the government forecaster.

Wheat output may reach 25.1 million tons in the current fiscal year ending in March 2011 compared with the previous estimate of 21.7 million tons made in June and exports may surge to 18.4 million tons, the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics Bureau of Rural Sciences forecast in a report Tuesday.

Resource News

Range River Gold confirmed Monday a significant upgrading of its open-pit resource potential of both the Ramornie North and Sarah deposits at Mount Morgans in WA.

Renaissance Minerals entered into an agreement to acquire Newmont’s interest in a highly prospective tenement package in Western Australia.

Signature Metals said Monday several new discoveries have been made within the project area at the Konongo gold project in Ghana.

Rox Resources said Monday it acquired two key exploration licenses in the Northern Territory, located adjacent to its Myrtle zinc-lead project at Macarthur River.

NiPlats Australia announced the start of the gravity survey at the Speewah Dome for target identification drilling program in the coming year.

Gainers & Losers

St Barbara Ltd led the gainers in the ASX with a gain of 10.26% to A$0.43 followed by Platinum Australia Ltd 7.52% to A$0.715 and Karoon Gas Australia Ltd 7.44% to A$7.94.

Isoft Group Ltd led the decliners in the index with a loss of 3.7% to A$0.13 followed by Gunns Ltd 3.01% to A$0.645 and Computershare Ltd 2.9% to A$9.7.