Australian Stocks: What Happened Today?

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

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

Australian Market

The Australian market (XJO) closed up 79.6 points or 1.68% to 4811.3 today. The market opened strong today with another good lead from global markets, theDow Jones rose 149.83 points or 1.02% to 14,910.10. The XJO reached a high of 4830.5 at 1:15pm and managed to hold a decent gain for the afternoon. Overall consensus for the effect of what has been happening in politics over the past two days was that it would have little to no change on investors views this week. All market sectors were in the positive today, the best being Gold, rising 3.78% followed by Telecommunications, adding 2.81%.

Kevin Rudd is PM once again! At 9:30 this morning K Rudd was sworn in as PM along with Chris Bowen as treasurer. Furthermore opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he's unlikely to move a motion of no confidence in the new Kevin Rudd government. Abbott says it's up to the people of Australia to choose the prime minister and government.When asked why he had changed his mind on a no-confidence motion, Mr Abbott said he had always argued it was the people's responsibility to choose the prime minister and government. ''All we've had for the last three years are back room deals and back stabbing orchestrated by the faceless men who are not interested in the welfare of the Australian people,'' Abbott said. ''They're not interested in the welfare of all the battlers out there who are struggling with cost of living pressures, who wonder why our borders are in chaos, they're just interested in protecting their own power and prerogatives.'' Mr Abbott said the political execution of Mr Rudd three years ago, and now Ms Gillard, was vindication of what the opposition had said about the Labor government.

Toll Holdings Limited ((TOL)) has announced today that it will book a $200 million write down for its lower performing global forwarding business. The business deals mainly with sea and air freight, and has been a victim of weak market conditions over the past 6 months. That said, TOL is still sticking to the reported $420-$430 million in operating earnings.

In Australian economic data, the ABS reports that total job vacancies for the three months to May fell 7.3% to 138,900 in seasonally adjusted terms in the three months to end May. That followed a 10% the previous quarter and left vacancies down 19% on the same period of 2012. Vacancies in the private sector fell 7.9% in the quarter to 127,700, to be down 18.5% on the year.

Suncorp Group Limited ((SUN)) is paying back customers that did not receive a promoted discount on their insurance policies. The refunds are being paid after an investigation by the corporate regulator into Suncorp's IT, documentation and human resources systems. ASIC has undertaken a review of Suncorp's business after the insurer reported system breaches to the regulator. Suncorp had failed to provide promoted discounts to some customers with multiple policies, some senior card holders with home and contents insurance, and some customers who bought contents insurance online. Suncorp will pay $23 million to the rightful customers

AUD is currently trading at $0.9302, up $0.0026 against the USD.

Top Performers

St Barbara Limited ((SBM)) up $0.045 or 11.25% to $0.445

Senex Energy Limited ((SXY)) up $0.042 or 8.00% to $0.567

Newcrest Mining Limited ((NCM)) up $0.555 or 5.96% to $9.865

JB Hifi Limited ((JBH)) up $0.93 or 5.87% to $16.78

AWE Limited ((AWE)) up $0.067 or 5.78% to $1.227

Bottom Performers

Alacer Gold Corp ((AQG)) down -$0.23 or -10.04% to $2.06

Discovery Metals Limited ((DML)) down -$0.01 or -7.69% to $0.12

Billabong International Limited ((BBG)) down -$0.013 or -7.22% to $0.167

Ausdrill Limited ((ASL)) down -$0.06 or -6.56% to $0.855

Independence Group NL ((IGO)) down -$0.155 or -6.10% to $2.385

Our Comments

Some really good looking charts here on the banks at the moment after their recent significant correction and look very bullish.

Looking at ANZ you can see price action has have come back to a support level and buying has come in. This happens to be not the first swing high but second. To remain in an uptrend you can break one swing high but not two. Very good sign here for a rally medium term.

(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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