Sydney Stocks Edge Up; Rio Tinto, Chinalco in Venture Deal

Chandrasekhar Atreya
03 Dec, 2010
New York City

Australian shares closed marginally up. Rio Tinto and Chinalco agreed to form a joint venture to explore new deposits in China. November auto sales rise 1.8% in Australia. Western Australia approves a bill allowing BHP and Rio Tinto for further expansions in the state with a one-time payment of A$350 million.

[R]6:00 PM Sydney, Australia – Australian shares closed marginally up. Rio Tinto and Chinalco agreed to form a joint venture to explore new deposits in China. November auto sales rise 1.8% in Australia. Western Australia approves a bill allowing BHP and Rio Tinto for further expansions in the state with a one-time payment of A$350 million.[/R]

Australian stocks declined from the peak of the day ahead of U.S. jobs report. Stocks in general were higher tracking the gains in the commodities prices and resource stocks.

The ASX 200 gained 0.38% or 18 points for the day to close at 4,694.20 and posted a welcome gain of 2.09% for the week.

The Australian dollar ended the day higher as traders awaited the U.S. employment data. The Aussie closed at 97.83 U.S. cents, up from yesterday’s close of 96.65.

Rio Tinto signed a deal today in Beijing with Chinalco, its Chinese partner, to establish a joint venture and explore new deposits in China. Aluminum Corp of China, also known as Chinalco will take a controlling 51% stake in the venture and Rio will have the rest.

The companies said that the joint venture would start operations in the first half of 2011, and would have three to five assets in China. The joint venture company would be chaired by a Chinalco official, while Rio Tinto will appoint the chief executive position.

New car sales rose 1.8% from a year ago to 87,342 vehicles sold in November and four-wheel drives sales rose 13.3%, according to official data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries released today.

There were 167,955 new complaints made by Australians to the telecom watchdog during the year 2009-10 that included a surge in complaints about global roaming charges.

The most common of these complaints related to billings and payments and involved improper explanations about product plans, advertisements and poor customer service. Even though there was an overall 5% drop in new complaints in 2009-10, the number of complaints registered remained high, Ombudsman Simon Cohen told reporters today.

Western Australia said today it had approved a bill that would allow large miners BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto expand operations in the state for a one-time payment of A$350 million.

Shareholders of Andean Resources approved Goldcorp’s C$3.6 billion takeover offer.

Itochu Corp and a few other firms from Japan are helping state governments in Australia with their infrastructure development to deal with booming populations and a drought.

Transport investigators said the initial assessment of their finding was that leaking oil into the engine of the Qantas-operated Airbus A380 was the main cause for a mid-air failure incident last month when the Trent 900 engine exploded on a Sydney-bound flight over Indonesia on November 4.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan said in Canberra today, the incident was the result of an uncontained engine failure which saw a loose disc, let loose by the oil fire, shear through the left wing and other parts of the aircraft.

PBL, the media group formerly known as Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, changed its name to Nine Entertainment Co, in a move that is potentially aimed at attracting more retail investors to the expected A$2 billion-plus offering.

Results of the SelectingSuper survey of returns for the year ending October 31 show that industry and corporate funds dominate superannuation performance.

The results came in a month when returns of super funds bounced back, contributing a 6.6% increase in the 12 months surveyed. Health Super led all funds with a return of 9.54% followed by ANZ Australian Staff Super 9.5% and CBA Officers Fund at 9.47%.

Stock Movers

Resource stocks led the gains in the index after weakness crept into several sectors most notably the banks.

Aquila Resources led the gainers in the ASX 200 index with a rise of 7.93% to close at A$9.96.

BHP Billiton gained 26 cents to close at A$44.59. Rio Tinto added 1.66% to close at A$86.42 after announcing its agreement for prospecting with Chinalco. Fortescue Metals Group rose by 9 cents to close at A$6.50.

Commonwealth Bank was the best performer among banks and gained 13 cents to A$49.43. National Australia Bank added 2 cents to A$23.93, while Westpac lost 3 cents to close at A$21.93. ANZ Bank dropped 11 cents to close at A$23.31.

Companies with exposure to U.S. housing market were among the market’s best performing stocks like James Hardie added 6.16% to A$6.20. Boral Group added 15 cents to close at A$4.82.