Australian Market Trims Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is trimming its early gains in mid-market trading on Monday, but adding to the gains in the previous session, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street on Friday. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index is moving above the 8,800.00 level, with gains across most sectors led by mining and financial stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 36.20 points or 0.41 percent to 8,809.70, after touching a high of 8,846.00 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 38.90 points or 0.43 percent to 9,100.10. Australian stocks closed modestly higher on Friday.

Among the major miners, Rio Tinto is adding more than 2 percent, BHP Group is gaining almost 1 percent and Fortescue is advancing more than 3 percent. Mineral Resources is flat.

Oil stocks are mostly lower. Woodside Energy and Beach energy are losing almost 2 percent each, while Santos is edging down 0.1 percent. Origin Energy is gaining almost 1 percent.

Among tech stocks, Afterpay owner Block, Xero and Appen are gaining almost 1 percent each, while Zip is edging up 0.1 percent. WiseTech Global is edging down 0.5 percent.

Gold miners are higher. Evolution Mining is surging more than 5 percent, Resolute Mining is jumping more than 8 percent, Northern Star Resources is soaring more than 7 percent, Newmont is gaining almost 5 percent and Gold Road Resources is adding almost 2 percent.

Among the big four banks, National Australia Bank, ANZ Banking, Commonwealth Bank and Westpac are all edging down 0.1 to 0.5 percent each.

In other news, shares in Starpharma are skyrocketing more than 65 percent after the biotech inked a licensing agreement with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, to develop new cancer therapies.

Shares in Reece Ltd. are jumping almost 13 percent after the plumbing supplies group announced plans to buy back $250 million of shares.

Shares in Viva Energy are tumbling more than 8 percent after announcing the resignation of C&M CEO Jevan Bouzo, with Jennifer Gray stepping in as Interim CEO and Group CEO Scott Wyatt overseeing the retail strategy. However, it reaffirms its 2025 outlook.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.659 on Monday.