Reuters: Hot Stocks: Australian shares up; BHP's profit drops

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Australian shares up; BHP's profit drops Feb 19th 2013, 23:38 Tweet Share this Email Print Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:38pm EST SYDNEY, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Australian shares rose 0.3 percent early on Wednesday, extending a rally that has taken them to 4-1/2 year highs, with global miner BHP Billiton Ltd lagging slightly after its half-year profit dropped sharply and it appointed a new CEO. BHP inched up 0.1 percent after reporting a 43 percent drop in half-year profits, its worst half-year slide in more than a decade but in line with market expectations. The company said CEO Marius Kloppers will step down in May and be replaced by Andrew Mackenzie. In contrast, major mining rival Rio Tinto Ltd dropped 0.7 percent. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index added 14.2 points to 5,096.1 by 2317 GMT. Better-than-expected corporate earnings have added momentum to a sustained rally, with the market up more than 17 percent since mid-November. New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index lost 0.8 percent, or 33.2 points to 4,211 in early trade. (Reporting by Thuy Ong; Editing by John Mair) Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

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