Australian Market Extends Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian market is extending its early gains in mid-market moves on Thursday, adding to the gains in the previous two sessions, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is moving above the 9,050 mark to fresh all-time highs, with gains in gold miners, energy and financial stocks partially offset by weakness in technology stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 94.30 points or 1.05 percent to 9,085.20, after touching a fresh all-time high of 9,109.70 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 90.80 points or 0.98 percent to 9,389.80. Australian stocks ended significantly higher on Wednesday.

Among major miners, BHP Group and Rio Tinto are edging up 0.5 percent each, while Mineral Resources is losing more than 1 percent and Fortescue is down almost 1 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly higher. Beach energy is gaining almost 2 percent and Origin Energy is edging up 0.2 percent, while Woodside Energy and Santos are adding almost 1 percent each.

In the tech space, Afterpay owner Block is losing almost 1 percent and Appen is down almost 1 percent, while Xero,Zip and WiseTech Global are slipping more than 1 percent each.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank and Westpac are advancing almost 2 percent each, while ANZ Banking is adding more than 2 percent and National Australia Bank is gaining more than 1 percent.

Among gold miners, Newmont is gaining almost 4 percent, Northern Star Resources is adding almost 3 percent and Genesis Minerals is surging almost 7 percent, while Resolute Mining and Evolution Mining are advancing more than 3 percent each.

In other news, shares in AMP are jumping more than 9 percent after the financial services company reported that total assets under management increased 3.6 percent quarter-on-quarter to $159.5 billion.

In economic news, the jobless rate is Australia came in at a seasonally adjusted 4.5 percent in September, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. That was above forecasts for 4.3 percent and up from 4.2 percent in August.

The Australian economy added 14,900 jobs last month, missing expectations for an increase of 20,500 following the loss of 11,800 jobs in August. The participation rate improved to 67.0 percent, exceeding expectations for 66.8 percent, which would have been unchanged.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.648 on Thursday.