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DJ Australian Shares End Flat; Defensive Stocks Popular
SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--The Australian share market held its ground Tuesday as buying of defensive stocks such as banks and consumer staples offset weakness in resource stocks caused by falls in commodity prices.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index closed down 2.8 points at 4921.3 points. "It looks like there's been some defensive buying as resources fall," said Justin Gallagher, head of Sydney sales trading at ABN AMRO Morgans."Resources were pretty resilient yesterday considering they were weaker in Europe. It looks like some of the large selling that was around on Friday has come back in the market again. I'd say it's definitely offshore. It looks like on any kind of support, that selling comes back out again." Crude oil fell US$1.91 at US$61.00 overnight. It also fell 37 cents to US$60.63 in
Asia. London Metal Exchange copper fell 3.9% and aluminum fell 2.7% overnight. Among the large resource companies, BHP Billiton fell 1.7%, Rio Tinto fell 2.5% and Woodside Petroleum fell 2.1%. "Monthly charts on base metal prices have turned negative," said Tolhurst Noall options trader Tri Thai. Major banks were mostly stronger apart from Westpac, which fell 0.5%. Commonwealth Bank of Australia rose 0.8% and National Australia Bank rose 0.4%. Coles Myer also drew defensive buying, closing up 1.2%.
Suncorp-Metway rose 0.5% and Insurance Australia Group rose 0.4%. Suncorp-Metway and
IAG go ex-dividend Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.