Australian Market Slightly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is slightly higher on Tuesday, extending the gains in the previous two sessions, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 staying above the 7,200 level, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight, as traders remain cautious ahead of the Reserve Bank of Australia's monetary policy decision later in the day.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 1.70 points or 0.02 percent to 7,247.80, after touching a high of 7,264.10 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 3.60 points or 0.05 percent to 7,446.40. Australian stocks closed notably higher on Monday.

Among the major miners, Fortescue Metals and Mineral Resources are gaining almost 1 percent each, while Rio Tinto and BHP Group are edging up 0.3 to 0.4 percent each. Oil stocks are mixed. Woodside Energy and Beach energy are edging up 0.2 percent each, while Santos and Origin Energy are edging down 0.3 percent each. Among tech stocks, Afterpay owner Block, Xero and WiseTech Global are edging down 0.4 to 0.5 percent each, while Appen is losing almost 1 percent. Zip is gaining almost 3 percent.

Gold miners are mostly higher. Gold Road Resources and Resolute Mining are gaining almost 4 percent each, while Northern Star resources is adding more than 2 percent, Evolution Mining is advancing almost 3 percent and Newcrest Mining is up almost 1 percent.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ Banking are edging down 0.1 percent each, while National Australia Bank is edging up 0.3 percent.

In other news, shares in Costa Group are soaring almost 11 percent after the horticultural company revealed it has received a $3.50 per share takeover offer from Paine Schwartz Partners.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.668 on Tuesday.

On the Wall Street, stocks turned in a relatively lackluster performance during trading on Monday following the strong upward move seen last week. The major averages spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before closing modestly higher.

The Nasdaq rose 28.85 points or 0.2 percent to 13,816.77, the S&P 500 inched up 5.21 points or 0.1 percent to 4,455.59 and the Dow crept up 10.87 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 34,418.47. With the uptick, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 reached their best closing levels in over a year.

Meanwhile, the major European markets moved to the downside on the day. While the German DAX Index fell by 0.4 percent, the French CAC 40 Index dipped by 0.2 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index edged down by 0.1 percent.

Crude oil futures settled lower on Monday amid concerns about the outlook for energy demand following a drop in global factory activity in the month of June. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended lower by $0.85 or about 1.2% at $69.79 a barrel.