Australian sharemarket ekes out modest gains
Announcement posted by de2 Communications 26 Jul 2016
“Despite negative leads from the overnight session, the local bulls managed to eke out a very modest gain of a handful of points,” said Chris Conway, Head of Research at the Australian Stock Report.
According to Conway strength in financials, property, utilities and consumer discretionary stocks was just enough to eclipse the weakness in energy, IT, healthcare, consumer staples and telcos.
The big four banks did most of the grunt work to push the market the right side of flat, with ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) the best of the lot, up 0.9%. National Australia Bank (NAB) added 0.7%.
Not having such a good time of things were energy plays, with Santos (STO) the weakest of the big three, down 2.4%. Oil Search (OSH) lost 1.1% whilst Woodside Petroleum (WPL) gave up 0.8%.
On the day the ASX 200 added four points (+0.1%) to settle at 5538.
The SPI dipped into 5470 during the morning session, but then rallied hard into the close to end near 5495 for the day.
The Market Bias Indicator is at Medium Risk.
***
For more information, visit: http://www.australianstockreport.com.au/