Weekly Loss of 2.8% in Australian Trading; Rio Tinto Lifts Hathor Offer

Marcus Jacob
18 Nov, 2011
New York City

Australian stocks closed down on Friday and lost 2.8% in the week. Banks led the decliners on the worries that the turmoil in the euro zone may curb access to wholesale funding of $100 billion. Rio Tinto increased its offer for Canada based Hathor Exploration to $636 million.

[R]6:00 PM Sydney – Australian stocks closed down on Friday and lost 2.8% in the week. Banks led the decliners on the worries that the turmoil in the euro zone may curb access to wholesale funding of $100 billion. Rio Tinto increased its offer for Canada based Hathor Exploration to $636 million.[/R]

Australian stocks traded lower following the weakness in the world markets as the calls for central bank intervention rose in the euro zone.

Australian banks led the decliners on the rising yields in Italy, Spain and France and on the worries that the access to wholesale market may be curtailed.

Four largest banks in Australia rely on the markets in the Europe and the U.S. for as much as $100 billion a year.

The ASX 200 index fell 81.20 or 1.9% to 4,177 and All Ordinaries index decreased 1.8% or 77.4 to 4,246.70. For the week the benchmark ASX 200 index declined 2.8%.

The Australian dollar gained a fraction to US$1.014 and traded as low as US$1.0021 and at its intra-day low in the month.

In trading, stock turnover decreased to 1.7 billion shares worth $4.1 billion with 345 stocks closing higher, 663 declining and 349 unchanged.

Stock Movers

BHP Billiton Ltd closed down $0.91 to $36.13 and Rio Tinto Ltd decreased $1.02 to $67.05. Newcrest Mining decreased 77 cents to $35.85.

Fortescue Metals Group decreased 6 cents to $4.85, Lynas Corporation Limited increased 3 cents to $1.21 and Iluka Resources fell $1.36 to $15.74. Kingsgate Consolidated decreased 28 cents to $6.53.

Monadelphous added 18 cents to $19.30 after it won construction contracts of $140 million in Papua New Guinea.

BlueScope Steel declined 4 cents to 65 cents a day after the compensation committee defended the decision to pay out $3 billion in bonuses in a year when the company lost $1 billion.

Uranium miner Paladin Energy decreased 8 cents to $1.50 and Peninsula Energy Ltd fell 6% to 4.3 cents. Extract Resources decreased 6 cents to $7.67.

Oil Search Limited decreased 13 cents to $6.21, Santos Limited fell 26 cents to $12.88 and Woodside Petroleum closed down 28 cents to $34.95.

Santos said it is not looking to sell its two fields Barossa and Caldita natural gas fields in Timor Sea. The natural gas from the fields will be used to feed the Darwin LNG plant.

Brambles increased 1 cent to $6.82 and Cochlear Limited decreased $1.57 to $53.93.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia closed down 88 cents to $47.73 and National Australia Bank decreased 88 cents to $23.46. ANZ edged down 52 cents to $20.06. Westpac fell 48 cents to $20.37.

David Jones Limited closed down 1 cent to $3.17 and Wesfarmers Limited closed down 27 cent to $32.09. Harvey Norman decreased 8 cents to $2.08.

Woolworths Limited closed down 24 cents to $24.60 and James Hardie Industries SE increased 2 cents to $6.50.

Ramsay Health Care Limited decreased 12 cents to $18.87.

Qantas Airways Ltd closed down 3 cents to $1.66, Virgin Blue closed unchanged at 37.5 cents but Flight Centre declined 12 cents to $19.85.