Australian Market Maintains Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is maintaining its early gains in mid-market trading on Wednesday, extending the gains in the previous four sessions, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 moving a tad above the 8,000 mark, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight, with gains across most sectors led by mining and financial stocks. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 61.90 points or 0.78 percent to 8,004.40, after touching a high of 8,014.10 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 61.40 points or 0.75 percent to 8,228.10. Australian stocks ended slightly higher on Tuesday.

Among major miners, BHP Group and Rio Tinto are gaining almost 2 percent each, while Mineral Resources is advancing almost 2 percent and Fortescue Metals is adding more than 1 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly higher. Woodside Energy and Beach energy are adding more than 1 percent each, while Santos is up almost 2 percent and Origin Energy is edging up 0.5 percent.

In the tech space, Appen is advancing almost 4 percent, WiseTech Global is edging up 0.4 percent and Zip is adding almost 3 percent, while Afterpay owner Block is losing more than 1 percent and Xero is down almost 1 percent.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac are gaining almost 1 percent each, while ANZ Banking is adding almost 3 percent.

Among gold miners, Evolution Mining is edging up 0.5 percent, Resolute Mining is advancing almost 5 percent, Newmont is gaining almost 2 percent and Gold Road Resources is adding more than 2 percent, while Northern Star Resources is edging down 0.2 percent.

In economic news, Australia's monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 2.4 percent on year in February 2025, down from a four-month high of 2.5 percent in the previous month, and below market expectations of 2.5 percent. This marked the lowest inflation rate since November 2024. The annual trimmed mean inflation edged down to 2.7 percent from 2.8 percent in January.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.630 on Wednesday.