Australian share traders will look for a higher open on Monday, looking for a bounceback from Friday's drop away from record highs. Australian shares moved lower finished last week in negative territory off of Thursday's down-side lead from Wall Street. Sydney's benchmark ASX200 Index was down 132.1 points to close at 6696.6, less than a point lower than its close one week earlier, while the All Ordinaries Index dropped 126.9 points to finish the week at 6,726.7. Both indices closed at record highs on Thursday. Among individual stocks of interest, Australia's major mining companies were lower. BHP Billiton fell $1.90 while Rio Tinto fell $4.04. Retailers also moved lower. Woolworths fell .81, Coles fell ., David Jones fell .11 and Harvey Norman fell .06.Among media stocks, Fairfax gained .05, News Corp dropped .21 and PBL lost .35. For the big banks, ANZ dropped .44, NAB lost .40, Westpac fell .58 and Commonwealth Bank lost .45. Energy stocks were generally mixed on Friday. Woodside lost .44, Santos lost .56 and Oil Search lost .12. AGL Energy gained .37 after announcing the sale of its stake in AlintaAGL to Babcock & Brown Power for A$522 million. Babcock & Brown Power lost .10. In overseas trading, Wall Street regained some ground on Friday on a bounceback from Thursday's sharp losses, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the week down 1.53 percent. Closer to home, New Zealand's benchmark NZX-50 Index closed down 53.76 points or 1.3 percent at 4,154.12. In Tokyo, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 average was off 2.1 per cent to 16,517.48, its lowest level in a week. The broader Topix index lost 2.2 per cent to 1,600.17. Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index lost 1,024.5 points on Friday to close at 30,468.43 and the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 136.5 points to close at 5,777.81. On the economic news calendar, Australian share traders today learn October inflation figures and Performance of Services Sector data for October from the Australian Industry Group.
November 4, 2007 6:14 PM