Australian Market Extends Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian market is extending its early gains in mid-market moves on Thursday, reversing the losses in the previous session, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is moving above the 7,900 level, with gains across most sectors led by gold miners, financial and technology stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 86.90 points or 1.11 percent to 7,915.20, after touching a high of 7,919.40 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 89.30 points or 1.11 percent to 8,144.60. Australian stocks ended notably lower on Wednesday.

Among major miners, Rio Tinto and BHP Group are losing almost 1 percent each, while Fortescue Metals is losing more than 2 percent and Mineral Resources is down more than 1 percent.

Oil stocks are mixed. Santos and Origin Energy are gaining almost 1 percent each, while Beach energy is down more than 1 percent and Woodside Energy is losing almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Afterpay owner Block is gaining more than 4 percent and WiseTech Global is rising more than 2 percent, while Xero and Appen are advancing more than 1 percent each. Zip is flat.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ Banking are gaining almost 2 percent each, while National Australia Bank is adding 1.5 percent. Among gold miners, Newmont and Resolute Mining are edging up 0.5 percent each, while Northern Star Resources and Evolution Mining are advancing almost 3 percent each. Gold Road Resources is gaining almost 2 percent.

In corporate news, shares in Nanosonics are soaring more than 13 percent after US regulators approved its cleaning tool designed to clean endoscopes used in hospitals and reduce infection risk.

Share in TPG Telecom are surging almost 5 percent after the competition watchdog gave it a green light to proceed with its $5.25 billion sale of its fibre networks to Vocus Group.

Shares in Arafura Rare Earths are jumping almost 12 percent after it secured a binding five-year offtake agreement to supply 100 tonnes per year of neodymium-praseodymium oxide to Luxembourg-based metals and minerals trader Traxys Europe SA.

In economic news, the unemployment rate in Australia came in at a seasonally adjusted 4.1 percent in February, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday - in line with expectations and unchanged from the January reading.

But the Australian economy lost 52,800 jobs last month, the bureau said, well shy of expectations for an increase of 30,800 jobs following the addition of 44,000 in January. Full-time employment was down 35,700 jobs following the addition of 54,100 a month earlier.

The participation rate was 66.8 percent, again missing forecasts for 67.3 percent - which would have been unchanged from the previous month.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.634 on Thursday.