She's Apples After A Row Of Lemons
The Age
Saturday February 8, 2003
The stockmarket finished another nasty week on a high yesterday, with most brokers attributing the positive result to a bounce-back after Thursday's losses.
The All Ordinaries Index rose 17.9 points to 2886.1 while the S&P/ASX 200 gained 19.8 points to 2906, which left the benchmark index with a loss of 50.9 points for the week. It is now down 188 points, or 6 per cent, from its 2003 high in the first week of January.
On Wall Street, investors pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a four-month low in response to a sluggish productivity report, continuing uncertainty over war with Iraq and heightened tensions with North Korea. The Dow fell 55.88 points to 7929.30.
Senior private client adviser Paul Pekish, of Paterson Ord Minnett, said it remained to be seen if the market would be able to recover from the week's sluggish performance.
"The jury's still out as to whether we have bounced back, we're testing levels that we haven't seen since mid-October and September 11," he said.
"We anticipated the drops in the US and we probably fell down a bit too hard on Thursday and our market has just taken a bit of a breather."
ABN Amro Morgans senior equities adviser Geoff Voller agreed that the market needed to jump back up. ``The weight of sentiment has been so poor that eventually you have to get the spring bouncing back a little bit," Mr Voller said.
Pokie-machine manufacturer Artistocrat was the day's big upset. The stock finished at $2.40, for a loss of $1.82 or 35 per cent.
In the banking sector, Commonwealth finished 50 higher at $26.47, ANZ firmed 6 to $16.47 and Westpac firmed 39 to $13.63. NAB lost 19 cents to $30.36.
Insurer QBE rocketed 42 to $8.11 after it lifted its profit forecast 15 per cent.
In the resources sector, BHP Billiton gained 22 to $9.27, Rio Tinto rose 37 to $33.32 and MIM Holdings was steady at $1.48.
Australia's media giants both closed higher. News Corp was up 19 higher at $10.99 and PBL rose 4 to $8.40.
Among the telcos, Telstra eased 2 to $4.37 and Optus owner Singapore Telecommunications dipped 2 cents to $1.29.
The dollar bounced back above US59 after a surprise rate cut from the Bank of England underpinned its value as a high-yielding currency. It finished the local session at US59.25, compared with US58.99 on Thursday.
Overnight the Bank of England cut its base rate by 25 basis points to 3.75 per cent, a 48-year low, citing weakening global and domestic demand.
"The Australian dollar is looking quite positive,"said St George Bank foreign exchange manager Stuart Moore.
The currency finished at its highs for the day, having made a low of US59.12.
Bonds finished mixed but the market remained buoyed by expectations of future
rate cuts. -- with AAP
DOLLAR
FRI THU
$US 59.25 58.99
Sterling 36.18p 35.89p
Yen 71.01 70.80
Euro 0.5480 0.5467
$NZ 1.0777 1.0761
SFR 0.7957 0.7982
TWI 53.6 53.4
RATES
FRI % THU %
TARGET CASH RATE 4.75 4.75
OVERNIGHT n/a 4.75
90-DAY BILLS 4.78 4.76
180-DAY BILLS 4.76 4.74
10-YEAR BONDS 5.12 5.10
© 2003 The Age