Australian Market Swings To Slight Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is swinging to slight gains in mid-market moves on Friday, extending the gains in the previous three seasons, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is staying above the 8,600 level, with gains in gold miners, financial and technology stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 9.20 points or 0.11 percent to 8,627.60, after hitting a low of 8,591.20 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 14.20 points or 0.16 percent to 8,920.90. Australian stocks closed modestly higher on Thursday.

Among major miners, Mineral Resources is advancing more than 5 percent, BHP Group is edging up 0.1 percent and Fortescue is gaining more than 1 percent, while Rio Tinto is losing more than 2 percent.

Oil stocks are mixed. Santos is losing more than 1 percent and Woodside Energy is down almost 1 percent, while Origin Energy and Beach energy are gaining almost 1 percent each. Among tech stocks, Afterpay-owner Block is gaining almost 2 percent, Zip is adding almost 4 percent, WiseTech Global is edging up 0.1 percent and Appen is advancing almost 3 percent, while Xero is losing more than 1 percent.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and ANZ Banking are edging up 0.1 to 0.5 percent each, while Westpac is gaining almost 1 percent. Gold miners are mostly higher. Resolute Mining and Northern Star Resources are adding almost 1 percent each, while Evolution Mining and Newmont are gaining more than 2 percent each. Genesis Minerals is advancing 1.5 percent.

In other news, shares in NextDC are jumping more than 5 percent after confirmation that the data centre provider has inked an MoU with OpenAI to develop a sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure partnership.

Shares in Premier Investments are diving more than 13 percent as the Peter Alexander and Smiggle owner announced a 12-month on-market share buyback of up to $100 million following the completion of its Apparel Brands sale to Myer.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.661 on Friday.