Australian Market Maintains Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is maintaining its early modest gains in mid-market trading on Tuesday, extending the gains in the previous session, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is staying below the 7,800 level, with small gains across most sectors led by financial and mining stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 26.10 points or 0.34 percent to 7774.70, after touching a high of 7,798.70 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 23.70 points or 0.30 percent to 7,983.40. Australian stocks closed sharply higher on Monday.

Among the major miners, BHP Group and Rio Tinto are edging up 0.1 percent each, while Fortescue Metals is gaining almost 1 percent. Mineral Resources is losing more than 1 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly higher. Origin Energy is gaining almost 1 percent, while Beach energy and Santos are edging up 0.4 to 0.5 percent each. Woodside Energy is edging down 0.4 percent.

Among tech stocks, Afterpay owner Block is adding more than 1 percent and Zip is edging up 0.5 percent, while WiseTech Global is losing more than 2 percent, Appen is declining almost 4 percent and Xero is edging down 0.4 percent.

Gold miners are mixed. Evolution Mining is gaining 2.5 percent, Gold Road Resources is edging up 0.3 percent and Newmont is up almost 1 percent, while Northern Star resources is edging down 0.5 percent and Resolute Mining is losing almost 2 percent.

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

In other news, shares in Bellevue Gold are plummeting more than 23 percent after the gold miner secured buyers for a $156.5 million new share placement.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.633 on Tuesday.