Australian Retail Sales, Business Investment Rise; Manufacturing Weakens

Marcus Jacob
01 Sep, 2011
New York City

The Australian stocks traded higher and the dollar was firm after retail sales increased and business investment in the second quarter was higher than expected. However, manufacturing continued to struggle under strong dollar.

[R]4:30 PM Sydney – The Australian stocks traded higher and the dollar was firm after retail sales increased and business investment in the second quarter was higher than expected. However, manufacturing continued to struggle under strong dollar.[/R]

The ASX 200 index rose 12.80 or 0.26% to 4,307.5 and All Ordinaries index added 11 or 0.3% to 4,382.7.

The Australian dollar closed down 0.02% to US$1.0702 and gold price decreased $15.35 to US$1,817.70.

In trading, turnover decreased to 2.36 billion shares and the trading value declined to $5.63 billion with 610 stocks gained, 435 declined and 381 were unchanged.

The business investment in the second quarter was ahead of expectations according to the latest data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

New spending by the private sector in the second quarter increased 4.9% to $33.82 billion and for the current year the business investment is expected to increase 18.5% to $148.76 billion.

In a separate report, the retail sales increased 0.5% in July from the previous month to $20.65 billion.

However, manufacturing index contracted in August on the higher dollar and weak demand. The manufacturing index tracked by The Australian Industry Group and Price WaterhouseCoopers decreased 0.1 to 43.3.

Stock Movers

BHP Billiton Ltd decreased 13 cents to $39.87 and Rio Tinto added $0.56 to $73.08.

BHP a day ago also said it will spend US$367 million to expand its coal handling operation in Newcastle.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia decreased 14 cents to $48.08 and National Australian Bank added 13 cents to $23.85. ANZ fell 2 cents to $20.27. Westpac Banking Corp gained 12 cents to $20.60.

Woodside Petroleum decreased 8 cents to $35.10 and Santos added 31 cents to $12.06. Oil Search increased 5 cents to $6.37.

Telstra increased 3 cents to $3.03 and chief executive David Thodey told analysts today that transferring its customers to NBN and decommission its copper network gradually is the best regulatory and financing alternative to the company.