Share market reaches three-month high on solid company earnings
Posted
Australian stocks have started the week at a three-month high, as investors cheered solid company earnings.
The All Ordinaries Index gained 0.5 per cent to close at 5,395 and the ASX 200 closed 27 points higher at 5,383.
Commonwealth Bank shares closed down 2.2 per cent at $74.35. The bank is trading ex-dividend.
It was the only one of the big four banks to retreat. NAB fared the best with a gain of 1.9 per cent to $34.75.
Elsewhere in the banking sector the regional lender Bendigo and Adelaide Bank added 0.5 per cent to $11.78.
The bank made a net profit of $180.7 million, down nearly five per cent from this time the year before.
But its cash profit, which is the banking industry's preferred measure, rose by 9.5 per cent. The bank will pay shareholders a fully-franked interim dividend of 31 cents a share.
Meanwhile, rubber products maker Ansell has seen its first-half profit rise by almost 15 per cent.
Ansell made an after-tax profit of $US65.5 million, up nearly 15 per cent on the same period a year before. Its shares dropped by 5.1 per cent to $18.31.
And profits have slumped for Aurizon after the Queensland-based rail company faced costs for the write-down of some of its rail fleet, a review of its projects and voluntary redundancies.
Aurizon says net profit dropped by 39 per cent in the first half of the financial year, down to $107 million.
But the company, which transports coal and iron ore, has boosted its coal haulage forecasts for the full year.
Its shares touched an all-time high on those forecasts and closed up 1.8 per cent at $5.19.
Gold miners were also in favour after spot gold broke through a three-month high. Newcrest Mining closed up 3.6 per cent at $11.45.
In commodity trade, spot gold is higher at $US1325.80 an ounce.
West Texas crude closed at $US100.29 a barrel, and in Singapore Tapis crude is fetching $US116.15.
In currencies, the dollar remains at a one-month high against the greenback.
At 5:00pm (AEDT) it was buying 90.5 US cents. It is also fetching 66 euro cents, 92 Japanese yen and 53.9 British pence.
Topics: stockmarket, markets, business-economics-and-finance, gold, industry, mining-industry, banking, rail-transport, oil-and-gas, currency, australia
