Australian Market Sharply Trims Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is sharply trimming its early gains in mid-market trading on Tuesday, but extending the gains in the previous two sessions, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is moving well above the 7,850 level, with a mixed performance across most sectors. Energy stocks were the only bright spot.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 17.80 points or 0.23 percent to 7,871.90, after touching a high of 7,922.90 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 17.80 points or 0.22 percent to 8,099.90. Australian stocks closed significantly higher on Monday.

Among the major miners, BHP Group and Mineral Resources are edging down 0.3 to 0.5 percent each, while Fortescue Metals is declining almost 2 percent. Rio Tinto is edging up 0.1 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly higher. Santos, Beach energy and Origin Energy are gaining almost 1 percent each, while Woodside Energy is edging up 0.3 percent.

Among tech stocks, Afterpay owner Block is gaining almost 3 percent and Xero is edging up 0.4 percent, while Appen is losing almost 5 percent, WiseTech Global is edging down 0.2 percent and Zip is declining more than 2 percent.

Gold miners are mostly lower. Evolution Mining is losing almost 1 percent, Northern Star resources is edging down 0.2 percent and Resolute Mining is declining almost 2 percent, while Newmont is advancing more than 2 percent. Gold Road Resources is slipping almost 5 percent after it warned of lower expected output from its Gruyere joint venture in the March quarter.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank is edging down 0.1 percent and National Australia Bank is losing almost 1 percent, while Westpac and ANZ Banking are gaining almost 1 percent each.

In other news, shares in New Hope Corp. are jumping more than 8 percent after the coal miner grew interim profit by more than a third, boosted its dividend and announced a $100 million share buyback.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.638 on Tuesday.