Australian Market Extends Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is extending its early gains in mid-market trading on Tuesday, adding to the gains in the previous two sessions, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is moving above the 8,850 level, with gains across most sectors led by mining and technology shares.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 47.30 points or 0.54 percent to 8,858.20, after touching a high of 8,865.80 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 45.80 points or 0.50 percent to 9,147.90. Australian stocks closed modestly higher on Monday.

Among the major miners, BHP Group and Rio Tinto are edging up 0.5 percent each, while Mineral Resources advancing almost 2 percent. Fortescue is edging down 0.2 percent. Oil stocks are mixed. Santos is edging down 0.4 percent, while Origin Energy and Beach energy are edging up 0.3 to 0.4 percent each. Woodside Energy is flat.

Among tech stocks, Afterpay owner Block, Zip and WiseTech Global are edging up 0.1 to 0.5 percent each, while Xero is gaining almost 1 percent. Appen is losing more than 1 percent.

Gold miners are mostly higher. Northern Star resources is gaining almost 2 percent, Newmont is advancing more than 2 percent, Evolution Mining is edging up 0.4 percent, Resolute Mining is surging almost 5 percent and Gold Road Resources is adding almost 1 percent.

Among the big four banks, ANZ Banking and Westpac are gaining almost 1 percent each, while Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank are adding more than 1 percent each.

In other news, shares in Myer are tumbling almost 28 percent after reporting that net profit slipped 30 percent, even as total sales increased 0.5 percent on a pro forma basis, due to its acquisition of the Apparel Brands business in January. Shares in Telix Pharmaceuticals are surging more than 8 percent after it said that the United States Centres for Medicare & Medicaid Services granted transitional pass-through payment status for its prostate cancer imaging product Gozellix.

In economic news, the manufacturing sector in Australia continued to expand in September, albeit at a slower pace, the latest survey from S&P Global revealed on Tuesday with a manufacturing PMI score of 51.6. That's down from 53.0 in August, although it remains above the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction. The survey also showed that the services PMI fell to 52.0 from 55.8 in the previous month.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.658 on Tuesday.