Australian Index Nears One-Month High

Marcus Jacob
30 Nov, 2012
New York City

Australian stocks opened higher following the gains in Asian and European markets. Banks and resource sector stocks closed up. Qantas said October customer traffic increased 5.9% but revenue per seat declined. Lynas said it started its Malaysian rare earth plant.

[R]7:30 PM Sydney – Australian stocks opened higher following the gains in Asian and European markets. Banks and resource sector stocks closed up. Qantas said October customer traffic increased 5.9% but revenue per seat declined. Lynas said it started its Malaysian rare earth plant.[/R]

The benchmark ASX 200 index opened sharply higher and traded near the high of the day in the session. Commodities gained and resource and banking stocks advanced.

The ASX 200 index gained 28.30 or 0.6% to 4,506 and the broader All Ordinaries advanced 27.97 to 4,518.03.

For the week, the ASX 200 index climbed 2.1% and for the month end index gained 0.5%.

Australian dollar inched lower to $1.0425.

Australian government sold $600 million of October 2015 Treasury bonds, according to the Australian Office of Financial Management. The bonds fetched average yield of 2.59% and bid-to-cover ratio was 4.72%.

Stock Movers

BHP Billiton Limited increased 18 cents to $34.39 and Rio Tinto Limited climbed $1.57 to $58.75.

Lynas Corporation Limited declined 3.5 cents or 5.2% to 64 cents but rose as much as 7% at the opening after it announced the start of production at its delayed Malaysian plant.

Iluka Resources added 3 cents to $8.23 and Fortescue Metals increased 5 cents to $3.91.

Aquila Resources confirmed it has not reached an agreement with its partners on $7.4 billion iron ore project in Western Australia but it expects to settle differences with its partners by the year-end.

Mirabela Nickel closed unchanged at 45 cents and Newcrest Mining gained 4 cents to $25.65. Kingsgate slid 3 cents to $4.86 and Whitehaven Coal advanced 12 cents to $2.97.

Transfield Services closed unchanged at $1.70 and engineering contractors WorleyParsons up 5 cents to $24.56.

Monadelphous Group added 1 cent to $21.77.

Oil Search Limited gained 7 cents to $7.10 and Santos Limited increased 21 cents to $11.14.

Woodside Petroleum jumped 20 cents to $33.80 and Origin Energy Limited increased 14 cents to $10.98.

Seven West Media closed unchanged at $1.62. Harvey Norman Holdings closed unchanged at $1.80.

Woolworths dropped 7 cents to $29.28 and Kathmandu slid 1 cent to $1.46.

David Jones Limited increased 4 cents to $2.49 and Wesfarmers slumped 14 cents to $35.55. Breville Group decreased 4 cents to $5.90.

Metcash declined 3.5% or 12.5 cents to $3.38 after the company lowered its earnings outlook for the current year and blamed the weakness in its grocery business and the loss of operating leverage on the closure of more Franklin stores demanded by the competition authorities.

Billabong International Limited lowered 1 cent to 92 cents.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia advanced 25 cents to $59.69 and Bank of Queensland increased 9 cents to $7.02 and ANZ jumped 27 cents to $24.36.

Macquarie Group climbed 86 cents to $32.76 and Perpetual Limited increased 24 cents to $31.23. National Australia Bank gained 35 cents to $24.30. Westpac jumped 27 cents to $25.50.

Toll Holdings increased 17 cents to $4.65, Leighton gained 6 cents to $17.23 and property developer Mirvac Group lowered 2 cents to $1.47.

Westfield Group slid 2 cents to $10.42.

Qantas closed unchanged at $1.33 after October passenger count rose 5.9% from a year ago to 1.97 million. Revenues per seat decreased 3.5 percentage points to 78.2%.

Flight Centre dropped 12 cents to $27 and Virgin Australia up 1 cent to 44 cents.

QR National added 3 cents to $3.61 and Telstra closed unchanged at $4.31.