Market buoyed by commodities
Posted
Strength in commodities pushed the miners up and helped the overall share market today.
The All Ordinaries index rose 56 points to 5,143 and the ASX 200 gained 1.1 per cent to 5,067.
Rio Tinto added 1.2 per cent to $126.50.
The Australian dollar was also buoyed by stronger than expected spending on capital in the June quarter.
Official figures show $22.6 billion was spent on capital in the June quarter, up 5.7 per cent from the quarter before.
Gaming company Aristocrat has posted a 43 per cent fall in net profit for the first half of $71 million, as sales dwindled in its two biggest markets, Australia and the United States.
But it has really hit the headlines today after the settlement of what could be Australia's biggest class action.
Thousands of shareholders have been awarded $145 million by the Federal Court, after alleging Aristocrat overstated its profits in 2001 and 2002, before the share price collapsed in 2003.
Aristocrat shares have risen 2.33 per cent to $5.72.
Wealth manager AMP's bottom line has been struck by the share market volatility.
After-tax profit for the first half has dived by almost a quarter to $366 million. AMP shares closed up 6.4 per cent to $6.82.
Power firm Origin Energy has posted an increase in after tax profit of 13 per cent to almost $517 million for 2008.
It has attributed the increase to higher earnings from its energy retailing. Origin shares closed slightly lower at $16.
About 5.30pm AEST, West Texas crude oil was worth $US118.17 a barrel and spot gold was fetching $US833.80 an ounce.
Economists were only expecting a rise of 2 per cent.
The Australian dollar was buying 86.79 US cents, 47.24 UK pence, 94.46 Japanese Yen and 58.7 euro cents.
