It has been a positive start to the trading week for the Australian share market. The local bourse jumped at the open and managed to maintain that momentum throughout the session before closing 0.45 per cent higher. It was the materials and energy sectors that were the star performers today after the price of commodities made some solid gains overnight. No surprises with financials mixed ahead of the RBA's August board meeting tomorrow.
The S&P/ASX 200 index closed 25 points up to finish at 5,587.
The value of trades was $3.7 billion on volume of 524 million shares at the close of trade. The top three stocks by value were CBA, BHP and ANZ.
On the futures market the SPI is 27 points up.
Economic newsCapital city house prices rose 0.8 per cent in July according to latest figures from CoreLogic RP Data. They were up 6.1 per cent for the year- representing the slowest growth in three years.
Also in economic news, Chinese PMI fell into contraction territory, from a previous reading of 50 to 49.9 in July.
Company newsSpookfish Limited
(ASX:SFI) has announced it has entered into a Master Services Agreement with NEXTDC Limited to collate its scalable IT processing infrastructure and public cloud connectivity services. The agreement will allow Spookfish to provide rapid turnaround of imagery from data ingestion, as well as direct connectivity options for major customers.
Shares in Spookfish closed 3.28 per cent up at $0.062.
ASX Limited
(ASX:ASX) has appointed Dominic Stevens as its new Managing Director and CEO effective today.
Oz Minerals Limited
(ASX:OZL) has signed a Heads of Agreement with Cassini Resources to mine Australia's largest undeveloped copper/nickel deposit.
Funtastic Limited
(ASX:FUN) says it expects an EBITDA loss for the full year to 2016 to be between $5.5 and $6 million.
Best and worst performersThe best performing sector was Energy adding 2.7 per cent to close at 8,455. The worst performing sector was Telcos, losing 0.7 per cent to close at 2,117 points.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX 200 was Whitehaven Coal, rising 8.31 per cent to close at $1.82. Shares in St Barbara and Independence Group also closed higher.
The worst performing stock was REA Group, dropping 3.69 per cent to close at $62.86. Shares in Myer Holdings and APN Outdoor also closed lower.
To commodities, Gold is trading at $US1,348 an ounce.
Light crude is $0.46 up at $US41.60 a barrel.
The Australian dollar is buying $US0.7598
