Australian Stocks: What Happened Today?

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            [1] => ((VAH))
            [2] => ((DCG))
            [3] => ((SXY))
            [4] => ((WHC))
            [5] => ((MND))
            [6] => ((SLR))
            [7] => ((CPL))
            [8] => ((SBM))
            [9] => ((MAD))
            [10] => ((ASL))
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            [1] => VAH
            [2] => DCG
            [3] => SXY
            [4] => WHC
            [5] => MND
            [6] => SLR
            [7] => CPL
            [8] => SBM
            [9] => MAD
            [10] => ASL
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)

This story features BHP GROUP LIMITED, and other companies.
For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: BHP
The company is included in ASX20, ASX50, ASX100, ASX200, ASX300 and ALL-ORDS

By Stephen Hogan, Senior Private Client Adviser, Equities/Derivatives

Australian Market

The Australian market (XJO) closed down -19.6 points or 0.41% to 4738.8 today. What was expected to be a bloodbath today turned out to be a positive notion for the Australian market. The SPI was set for -81 points this morning, and it looked as though we were heading there, reaching a low of 46.83.3 at about 10:30 am (-75 or so points or 1.6%) but the market rallied again and again to bring the loss back in check.

A feat that looked very grim with The Dow Jones falling -353.87 points or 2.34% to 14,758.30. The best performing sector was Energy rising 0.95% and the worst performer was the Gold sector falling -3.98% which came back from over -6% at one point during the day.

BHP billiton Limited ((BHP)) has sold 15 % of it holdings in the Aussie Jimblebar iron ore mine to two Japanese trading firms, Itochu and Mitsui, for about U.S. $1.5 billion which is located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Itochu is buying an 8% stake in the mine, worth U.S. $800 million and Mitsui will buy 7%, worth U.S. $700 million. The Pilbara mine will have an initial 35 million tonne a year capacity and forms part of BHP's plan to boost its output in the Pilbara to 220 million tonnes from 185 million tonnes by 2015-16.

Singapore Airlines are now able to increase their holdings in Virgin Australia Holdings ((VAH)) to 19.9% (from 10%) because of a clearance being approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board. Singapore Air will complete a $122.6 million purchase of VAH shares by the end of next week, making Singapore Air the second largest holder in VAH, the largest being Air New Zealand, who holds 23%.

AUD is currently trading at $0.9233, up $0.0037against the USD.

Top Performers

Decmil Group Limited ((DCG)) up $0.16 or 10.00% to $1.76

Senex Energy Limited ((SXY)) up $0.045 or 9.09% to $0.54

Whitehaven Coal Limited ((WHC)) up $0.16 or 7.31% to $2.35

Monadelphous Group Limited ((MND)) up $1.17 or 7.16% to $17.50

Perseus Mining Limited ((PRU)) up $0.05 or 6.90% to $0.775

Bottom Performers

Silver Lake Resources Limited ((SLR)) down -$0.14 or -17.07% to $0.68

Coalspur Mines Limited ((CPL)) down -$0.065 or -16.88% to $0.32

St Barbara Limited ((SBM)) down -$0.065 or -11.93% to $0.48

Maverick Drilling and Exploration Limited ((MAD)) down -$0.04 or -10.53% to $0.34

Ausdrill Limited ((ASL)) down -$0.115 or -9.96% to $1.04

Our Comments

Great effort by the market to really turn it around today, considering where we started the session at it looked like Nightmare on Bridge St part 2. I had a feeling after Fridays price action it may last a couple of days and it will be hard to sleep tonight watching the U.S. session. Nikkei was trading well also at the close which is a good sign for us.

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that worse case scenario in my opinion was the XJO would get down to the 50% Fibonacci level of the recent rally. That level is 4620 which is not too far away from where we are. Downside is now very limited in my opinion but I expect volatility now to remain for the next two months before any significant rally takes places without a counter trend.

Wishing the model portfolio inception had of been today!

(For a more comprehensive summary of last night’s market action see FNArena’s Overnight Report.)
 

Re-published with permission. Views expressed are not by association FNArena's (see our disclaimer).

Stephen Hogan is an Authorised Representative of Novus Capital. Authorised Representative No.345411 – http://www.stephenhogan.com.au

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