Australian Stocks, Dollar Edge Lower; Suncorp Loss

Marcus Jacob
30 May, 2011
New York City

Australian stocks edged lower as resources stocks led the decliners. Four leading banks closed lower and the Australian dollar closed lower. Suncorp edged lower and the insurance company guided higher margins.

[R]5:00 PM Sydney – Australian stocks edged lower as resources stocks led the decliners. Four leading banks closed lower and the Australian dollar closed lower. Suncorp edged lower and the insurance company guided higher margins.[/R]

Australian stocks edged lower as Asian markets struggled on the first day of the week. Markets looked to the Europe as Spain, Italy and Greece prepare to raise more than 13 billon euros today.

The ASX 200 index declined 16.5 or 0.35% to 4,667.50 and All Ordinaries index fell 14.2 or 0.3% 4,746.10.

Trading turnover was 1.8 billion shares worth $3.5 billion with 533 stocks closing higher and 577 lower and 369 unchanged.

The Australian dollar declined to US$1.06 and crude oil fell 53 cents to US$100.06.

Stock Movers

Banks closed lower. Westpac fell 28 cents to $21.87 and National Australia Bank declined 20 cents to $26.17. Commonwealth Bank edged lower 67 cents to $50.30. AMP declined 5 cents to $5.16 and Macquarie dropped 31 cents to $33.62.

Suncorp declined 3 cents to $8.36 after the company guided higher insurance margins by 3 percentage points. The company suffered $2.1 billion of losses related to two earthquakes in New Zealand and passed $2 billion to reinsurers. The company will take a charge of or NZ$120 million or $92 million.

Mining and resource stocks closed lower. BHP Billiton fell 21 cents to $43.91 and Rio Tinto declined 10 cents to $80.60. Newcrest Mining increased 7 cents to $39.21 and Kingsgate Consolidated declined 15 cents to $7.79.

New Hope edged lower 3 cents to $5.23 after quarterly sales dropped 42%.

Sundance Resources increased 4 cents to 40.50 cents after the steelmaker denied it is in merger talks with Hanlong Mining.