Australian Market Trims Early Gains In Mid-market

(RTTNews) - The Australian stock market is trimming its early gains in mid-market moves, extending the gains in the previous two sessions, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 moving above the 8,600 level, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight, with gains across most sectors led by technology stocks. Gold miner stocks were the only weak spot.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is gaining 70.90 points or 0.83 percent to 8,607.90, after touching a high of 8,637.90 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is up 74.80 points or 0.85 percent to 8,899.00. Australian stocks ended slightly higher on Tuesday.

Among major miners, Fortescue is up almost 1 percent, Rio Tinto is adding more than 1 percent, Mineral Resources is advancing more than 3 percent and BHP Group is gaining 1.5 percent.

Oil stocks are mostly higher. Santos is edging up 0.1 percent, Origin Energy is adding almost 1 percent and Beach energy is gaining more than 1 percent, while Woodside Energy is edging down 0.2 percent.

In the tech space, Afterpay owner Block is advancing more than 3 percent, Zip is surging more than 7 perrcent and Appen is adding almost 4 percent, while WiseTech Global and Xero are gaining almost 1 percent each.

Among the big four banks, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia bank and ANZ Banking are gaining almost 1 percent each, while Westpac is edging up 0.5 percent.

Among gold miners, Evolution Mining is losing more than 1 percent and Northern Star Resources is down almost 1 percent, while Resolute Mining and Genesis Minerals are edging down 0.3 percent each. Newmont is flat.

In other news, shares in National Storage are in a trading halt ahead of an announcement about a possible takeover bid for the self-storage company.

In economic news, The value of total construction work done in Australia was down a seasonally adjusted 0.7 percent on quarter in the third quarter of 2025, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday - coming in at A$79.278 billion. That missed forecasts for an increase of 0.4 percent following the 3.0 percent gain in the previous three months. On a yearly basis, total construction work was up 2.9 percent.

Building work done rose 4.0 percent on quarter and 6.5 percent on year to A$43.261 billion. Engineering work done fell 5.8 percent on quarter and 1.2 percent on year to A$36.016 billion.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.648 on Wednesday.