Australian Market Halves Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market halved its early gains in mid-market trading on Monday, reversing the losses in the previous session, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street on Friday, with gains across most sectors led by energy and technology stocks. Gold miners are the only weak spot.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 15.10 points or 0.18 percent to 8,325.50, after touching a high of 8,348.20 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 14.70 points or 0.17 percent to 8,572.10. Australian stocks closed modestly lower on Friday.

Among the major miners, BHP Group is edging up 0.5 percent and Rio Tinto is advancing almost 1 percent, while Fortescue Metals and Mineral Resources are edging down 0.1 to 0.2 percent each. Oil stocks are higher. Woodside Energy and Origin Energy are gaining almost 1 percent each, while Santos is edging up 0.3 percent. Beach energy is losing almost 2 percent.

Among tech stocks, Afterpay owner Block is gaining almost 1 percent, Zip is edging up 0.2 percent and Appen is advancing more than 4 percent, while WiseTech Global and Xero are edging down 0.2 percent each.

Gold miners are mostly lower. Evolution Mining is losing more than 1 percent, Resolute Mining is declining almost 4 percent, Northern Star Resources is down almost 3 percent and Newmont is edging down 0.1 percent, while Gold Road Resources is adding more than 1 percent.

Among the big four banks, Westpac, National Australia Bank, ANZ Banking and Commonwealth Bank are edging up 0.3 to 0.4 percent each.

In other news, shares in Star Entertainment are tumbling more than 7 percent after the embattled casino operator warned shareholders that unless it finds a new source of funding, its ability to stay afloat is in question.

Shares in Iress jumped more than 4 percent after the software provider announced the sale of its superannuation business to Apex Group for $40 million in cash.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.621 on Monday.