That Was The Week That Was … In Australia
Feb 1, 2015
By Our Man in Oz
Minews. Good morning Australia, your market seems to have run out of steam after a strong start to the year.
Oz. That was the case with the mining sector last week, particularly gold stocks, though the overall trend as measured by the all ordinaries index remained positive.
Minews. Gold continues to look interesting from an Australian perspective if your dollar keeps falling.
Oz. There’s no doubt about that, after the ASX closed on Friday you could see the effect of the double-barrelled move with gold rising modestly and the Aussie dollar retreating to around US77.6 cents, producing a local gold price of more than A$1,650 an ounce.
The rise above A$1,650 will probably be reflected in Monday trading when the market has a chance to make up the four per cent fall in the gold index last week, a correction probably caused by profit taking after some strong rises since mid-December.
While gold stocks were losing ground the rest of the mining sector was effectively steady, slipping by an insignificant 0.3 per cent, while the bank-heavy all ordinaries rose by 1.5 per cent.
Minews. Let’s move along to prices, starting with any news-making moves, please.
Oz. There were a few of those, some up, some down, and some making a return after a few years in the wilderness.
Fortescue Metals (FMG), the biggest of the pure play iron ore stocks, surprised the market with a better than expected December quarter result which saw it recoup A23 cents to A$2.36, after hitting a multi-year low of A$1.92 on Tuesday.
On the other side of the ledger the one-time copper darling, Tiger Resources, disappointed its supporters with a poor December quarter report, and immediately suffered a heavy A6.1 cent (55 per cent) fall to A4.9 cents, but that was up on the 12-month low of A3.4 cents reached in early Friday trade.
Another interesting move came from a gold explorer which has been flying beneath the radar screen for some time. Central West Gold (CWG) which is exploring in the Lachlan Fold Belt of New South Wales rose by A6 cents (32 per cent) to A25 cents, but did get to a 12-month high of A26.5 cents, earning itself a stock exchange speeding inquiry – which produced the standard “know of no reason” response.
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www.minesite.com