The Australian share market made solid gains today as investor confidence and risk appetite returned to the market.
The S&P/ASX200 rose 58 points to close at 4,864 while on the week it was up 28 points. On the futures market, the SPI is up 62 points.
Looking to the US and on Wall Street, the DOW Jones Industrial Average closed up 128 points over the four trading days this week. The S&P 500 Index was 11 points higher, NASDAQ edged up 18 and the 100 Index was 25 points higher.
To company news: Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) says it’s begun the search to replenish its board following the departure of a number of executives.
Non-executive directors Mr Rod Eddington and Mr Fortier will retire from the board after the annual general meeting on May 5.
Sir Rod joined the Rio board in 2005 – moving across from British Airways.
The five years that followed would turn out to be some of the most challenging in the group’s history – the debt –laden Rio suffering a near-death experience during the onset of the global financial crisis.
Meanwhile Rio said in a statement today its interest in Riversdale has risen to 18.7 per cent.
Shares in Rio Tinto rose 1.57 per cent to close at $85.52.
Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM) had a bumper day on the market on news its nearly doubled its gold estimate at a mine in PNG.
The revised exploration target has moved to more than 30 million ounces of gold and 8 million tonnes of copper.
That compares to 16 million ounces and 4.9 million respectively.
Despite the good news, analysts say the company was bold to announce such an upgrade.
Pre-feasibility is due to be completed at the mine by the end of this calendar year.
Shares in Newcrest surged 4.68 per cent to close at $40.02.
Now we speak to Piers Cracknell from Vantage FX. Now Piers how’s the Aussie dollar looking ahead of tomorrow morning’s all-important non-farm payroll data out of the US?
Taking a look at other news: The ACCC has trimmed monthly wholesale line rental costs by nearly $5 – effectively slashing the value of Telstra’s (ASX:TLS) copper network’s by billions of dollars, and cut its fixed-line revenue by millions of dollars.
And a court has heard the ANZ Bank (ASX:ANZ) planned to sell its custodian services division at least two weeks before it pulled the plug on a refinancing deal with margin lender - Primebroker...needing the company’s fate resolved for that sale to go ahead.
In the best and worst performers: The best performing sector at close was Real Estate Investment Trust with the index rising 16 points to close at 885. The worst performing sector was Energy, up 44 points to close at 16,420.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ASX200 was Gunns shares advancing 12.15 per cent to close at 60 cents. Shares in Infigen Energy and Monadelphous also closed firmer today.
The worst performing stock was Lynas Corporation slipping 3.93% to close at $2.20. Shares in Alacer Gold (formerly Avoca Resources) and Perseus also closed in the red today.
In commodities, gold is trading at $US1,419 an ounce and is up $10.68 on the week. Light crude is 5 cents up at $US101.96 a barrel.
The Australian dollar is trading at $1.01 point 42 US cents, and is flat on the week.
