Aussie shares are higher at midday, following a rally on Wall St overnight, with the top miners like BHP and Rio Tinto leading the gains on stronger base metal prices.
The S&P/ASX200 index is 84 points higher at 4,009 and on the futures market the SPI 200’s up 89 points.
In economic news: The ABS reports that Australia’s international merchandise imports rose 6 per cent to $15.67 billion in June.
To business news at midday: Mineral sands miner Iluka Resources Ltd (ASX:ILU) says production in the second quarter fell as the company cutback output in response to weaker demand and high inventories in major markets. The company’s production cuts led to an idling of around 50 per cent of its production capacity at its West Australian operations. Sales for the June quarter, before hedging came in at $123.6 million, 73 per cent higher than the March 2009 quarter, but down 41.8 per cent on the same period last year. Iluka Resources shares rose 4.07 per cent to $3.07.
Gold miner Sino Gold Mining Ltd (ASX:SGX) says it’s on track to deliver full year gold production in the upper end of 2009 guidance of 230,000 ounces of gold after reporting a record result for the second quarter. The gold miner’s operations produced a record 53,367 ounces of gold, up 51 per cent on its result in the June quarter last year, at a cost of US$391 an ounce. Sino Gold says gold production at its Jinfeng mine in China is forecast to gradually increase over the remainder of 2009. Sino Gold Mining shares gained 6.6 per cent to $5.33.
Turning now to market indices: Majority of sectors are in positive territory at midday, however the sector with the biggest gain is the Materials index up 278 points to 10,261. Shares in Sino Gold Mining are higher, price as mentioned before. Shares in Macarthur Coal and Fortescue Metals Group are also stronger at noon.
The only sector at midday in the red is the Telco Services index down almost a point to 1,183. Shares in Entertainment, Media and Telecoms Corp down 1.28 per cent to $0.385. Shares in Pipe Networks and Telstra are also lower at noon.
Looking to New Zealand and the NZSX50 is 25 points higher.
Taking a look at the top five stocks by value on the NZSX50: Telecom of New Zealand tops the list, stock up 1.89 per cent at $2.69, followed by Fletcher Building, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Sky City and Contact Energy.
To gold and the dollar: Gold is currently trading at $939.05 US an ounce and the Aussie dollar is trading at 80.08 US cents.
