(RTTNews) - Mixed to higher opens are expected Thursday for the New Zealand and Australia sharemarkets. Traders get a positive lead from Wall Street, which reacted moderately to word that the Federal Reserve was leaving interest rates at historic lows for an extended period of time.

New Zealand’s market closed with little change on Wednesday.

The benchmark NZX-50 index gained 7.7 points or 0.2 percent to finish at 3,166.7.

Trading volume was listed by the NZ Stock Exchange at 46.8 million shares valued at NZ$95.7 million.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancers 42 to 32 with 36 unchanged.

The list of the session’s most heavily traded stocks includes Auckland International Airport, which was up NZ$0.05, AMP NZ Office Trust was down .01, Contact Energy was up .04, Fletcher Building was down .12, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was up .04, Goodman Property Trust was unchanged, ING Property Trust was unchanged, Kiwi Income Property Trust was down a penny, SkyCity Entertainment was up .03 and Telecom Corp of NZ was up .04.

Among the dual-listed issues, Australia and NZ Bank was up .15, Westpac Bank was up .36, Telstra was up one cent, Pan Pac was up a half-cent and AMP was up .04.

Across the Tasman, Australia’s market posted a similarly modest gain.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 8.6 points or 0.2 percent at 4,540.1 while the broader All Ordinaries index gained 7.6 points or 0.2 percent to 4,547.6.

Trading volume was 2.42 billion shares valued at A$4.75 billion.

There were 504 issues closing higher, 533 were lower and 319 unchanged.

The financial sector was mixed, with Westpac Bank gaining A$0.26 after reporting a 10.7 percent decline in full year profits but saying the business was strong heading into fiscal 2010. Commonwealth Bank of Australia was up .09, National Australia Bank was down .24 and Australia and NZ Banking Group was up .15.

Investment bank Macquarie Group was up $1.02.

A bounce in gold prices helped the gold miners. Newcrest Mining jumped $1.07 or 3.2 percent, Sino Gold was up .34 or more than 5 percent while Lihir Gold was up .14.

Among the mining conglomerates, BHP Billiton was up .20 while rival Rio Tinto gained .62.
In overseas trading, U.S. markets closed higher following a Federal Reserve announcement that interest rates would remain unchanged, and were expected to stay there for an extended period.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 30.23 points or 0.31 percent at 9,802.14, the Nasdaq Composite index was down 1.80 points or 0.09 percent at 2,055.52 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 1.09 points or 0.10 percent at 1,046.50.

The other major Asia/pacific region markets all finished higher on Wednesday.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Average posted a gain of 41.36 points or 0.42 percent to close at 9,844.31.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 374.71 points or 1.76 percent at 21,614.77.

In China, the Shanghai Composite index rose 14.31 points or 0.46 percent to 3,128.54.

India’s SENSEX/BSE 30 index was up 507.19 points or 3.298 percent at 21,614.77.

The Jakarta Composite index in Indonesia was up 37.75 points or 1.62 percent at 2,371.86.

In South Korea, the KOSPI/Seoul Composite index advanced 30.01 points or 1.94 percent to 1,579.93.

The Taiwan Weighted Index was up 144.11 points or 1.97 percent at 7,647.04.

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Posted in Categories: Releases, Stocks.

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