Australian Market Extends Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian market in extending its early gains in mid-market moves on Thursday, adding to the gains in the previous two sessions, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is moving up above the 8,500 level, with gains in mining and financial stocks partially offset by weakness in energy and technology stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 86.60 points or 1.03 percent to 8,503.50, after touching a high of 8,508.10 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 85.50 points or 0.99 percent to 8,768.90. Australian stocks ended notably higher on Wednesday.

Among major miners, Mineral Resources and Fortescue Metals are gaining more than 1 percent each, while Rio Tinto is edging up 0.3 percent. BHP Group is edging down 0.3 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly lower. Woodside Energy is down almost 1 percent, Origin Energy is declining more than 1 percent, Santos is edging down 0.4 percent and Beach energy is slipping almost 4 percent.

In the tech space, Afterpay owner Block is down almost 1 percent, Appen is declining more than 3 percent and Zip is losing almost 4 percent, while WiseTech Global is gaining almost 1 percent and Xero is edging up 0.1 percent.

Among the big four banks, ANZ Banking and Westpac are gaining more than 2 percent each, while National Australia Bank is adding almost 3 percent and Commonwealth Bank is up almost 2 percent. Among gold miners, Northern Star Resources is advancing almost 3 percent, Evolution Mining is gaining more than 1 percent, Resolute Mining is adding almost 1 percent, Gold Road Resources is rising almost 2 percent and Newmont is up more than 2 percent.

In economic news, Australia posted a seasonally adjusted merchandise trade surplus of A$5.085 billion in December, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. That was shy of expectations for A$6.560 billion and was down from the downwardly revised A$6.792 billion in November (originally A$7.079 billion)

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.627 on Thursday.