All Ords Lifted By Resources Stocks

The Age

Friday April 19, 1996

STEPHEN CAUCHI

The sharemarket shrugged off softer gold prices and Wall Street's lack of direction to firm yesterday, with resources stocks lifting after their three-day slide.

Despite mixed overnight commodity prices, the All Resources and All Mining indexes posted gains, as did the All Industrials index.

The benchmark All Ordinaries Index rose 9.2 points to 2265.

8 while the June futures Share Price Index closed four points higher at 2288, a 22.2 point premium to the physical.

``It's been a pretty good performance by the market," said Mr Steve Maynem, of Nevitt's Stockbroking.

``There's been some good buying in some of the majors. It just looks like a bit of support from some of the institutions is coming into the stockmarket."

Trade began on a flat note with the Dow Jones - up a mere 1.8 points at 5551.7 - offering no lead.

Bullion dipped $US1.75 to $US389.20, a level last seen in January. The Gold Index declined 14.8 points to 2065.5.

The weaker gold price and selling against the yen saw the Australian dollar end the week on its lows, closing at 78.

10 US cents from 78.49.

Among gold stocks, Poseidon Gold lost 10 cents to $3.20, Plutonic Resources slipped 11 to $7.18 and Delta Gold slumped nine to $3.08.

MIM added four to $1.92 after announcing it would sell its 65 per cent stake in Highlands Gold to its shareholders.

Highlands shares dropped five to 69 cents on the news. Brokers said Bain Securities sold a special parcel of three million MIM shares at $1.93 a share. Among the major stocks, BHP climbed 17 cents to $19.22, CRA gained 15 to $20 and Western Mining added nine to $9.28.

The banking sector performed strongly with National Australia Bank lifting 13 cents to $11.23, Commonwealth Bank eight to $10.28 and ANZ one to $5.99.

Westpac lost six to $6.02 after making a formal offer to buy Trust Bank New Zealand.

News Corp lifted nine to $7.25 with its preferred shares also up nine to close at $6.31.

Elsewhere, Seven Network dived 11 cents, or 2.8 per cent, to $3.79 after Telstra Corp yesterday sold its 10.6 per cent stake, representing 30 million shares, at $3.72 a share.

Australian bonds performed better despite US bonds dipping.

A surge in a regional US manufacturing report sparked renewed inflation fears among US traders.

Bond traders were buoyed by weak imports data and the Reserve Bank of Australia tipping a fall in underlying inflation to below 3 per cent later this year. Benchmark 10-year bonds finished at 8.95 per cent from 9 per cent while three years ended at 8.51 per cent from 8.54 per cent.