China Bounce Lifts Australian Sentiment, Aussie Dollar Edges Lower

Marcus Jacob
10 Jul, 2015
New York City

Australian market indexes returned to positive undertone after markets in China rose for the second day in a row but commodities prices remained week in Asia. Home loan values and total number of loans issued declined in May in Australia. Transurban reported toll revenues in June quarter surged 70%.

[R]5:30 PM Sydney – Australian market indexes returned to positive undertone after markets in China rose for the second day in a row but commodities prices remained week in Asia. Home loan values and total number of loans issued declined in May in Australia. Transurban reported toll revenues in June quarter surged 70%.[/R]

Market optimism returned ahead of Greek bailout deadline on Sunday and Chinese stocks stabilized for the second day after three weeks of decline.

The seasonally adjusted total number of home loans in May declined 6.1% to 50,366 from 0.7% increase in April, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.

The value of home loans dropped 5.3% to $18.10 billion compared to 3.5% jump in the last month and the value of total home loans slumped 4.4% to $31.14 billion.

Australian dollar closed at 74.86 U.S. cents and in stock trading turnover dropped to 631 million shares worth $3.8 billion.

At close, the ASX 200 Index gained 21 or 0.4% to 5,492 and the broader All Ordinaries Index increased 21.8 to 5,478.10. For the week, ASX 200 fell 0.7%.

In commodities trading, gold slid US$1 to US$1,164 an ounce and Brent crude gained 0.73 cents to close at US$59.34 a barrel.

Australian Stock Movers

Cimic Group Ltd, formerly Leighton Holdings Limited gained 1.8% to $21.95 after the civil engineering construction company’s subsidiary secured $244 million contract to build Adelaide’s Torrens Road to River Torrens Project.

Separately, the company said its subsidiary Leighton Contractors (Asia) Limited won a contract as sole contractor for about $1.2 billion from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to construct a boundary control point on the border between Hong Kong and China.

Speedcast International Ltd soared 6.7% to $2.88 after the satellite services provider agreed to acquired Newsat’s teleport and satellite services business including customer and supplier contracts.

Transurban Group slid 0.2% to $9.65 and the toll road networks operator said toll revenue in the June quarter soared 70.8% to $400 million from a year ago period.

Sydney toll revenue climbed 20.9% to $172 million and Melbourne toll revenue jumped 7.1% to $145 million. Brisbane toll revenue increased 9.1% to $63 million.