The Australian market has recovered all of Tuesday's fall with a strong showing today. On the back of a weaker AUD the market rallied 63.7 points. The Materials (+2.56%) and Energy (+2.07%) sectors drove the market higher. Although Financials (+0.49%) finished positively they were an under-performer.
In economic news the economy shed 22,600 jobs however, the unemployment rate remained at 5.8% due to a lower participation rate at 64.6%. The soft read on the employment numbers caused the AUD to fall to $0.88 to the USD. This may also partially explain the under-performance of the banks today with the provisioning of bad and doubtful debts likely to increase if the unemployment rate starts to increase. CBA was the weakest of the banks falling 0.5% to $75.80. NAB was the best rising 0.8% while ANZ and Westpac were up 0.39% and 0.38% respectively.
In other news, RIO was up 2.1% to $65.58 after it achieved record iron ore production and shipments in 2013. Bega Cheese will sell its 18.8% stake in Warrnambool Cheese and Butter (WBC) to Canadian dairy giant Saputo, putting Saputo in prime position to win the takeover battle for WCB. WBC was up 1.3% to $9.40.
Gold stocks were also higher with Newcrest jumping 7.0% to $9.13.
The Australian dollar continues to be below 90 cents. Currently one Australian dollar is currently fetching 0.8813 US dollars; 0.6472 Euros; 0.539 Pounds; and 92.28 Yen.
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ADO - 23c target DDT - 4c, 5.8c targets
Both looking good for the next few days to hold imo
