Reuters: Hot Stocks: Australia shares rally, draw support from U.S. fiscal talks

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Australia shares rally, draw support from U.S. fiscal talks Nov 20th 2012, 05:38 SYDNEY | Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:38am EST SYDNEY Nov 20 (Reuters) - Australian shares rallied 0.6 percent on Tuesday, supported by miners, as hopes of a compromise in the U.S. fiscal crisis and comments from the Australian central bank that it was open to interest rate cuts boosted sentiment. Leading U.S. lawmakers expressed confidence they could reach a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff", a toxic $600 billion combination of earlier failed budget deals. Republican and Democratic leaders have agreed on a framework to reform the tax code and government benefit programs next year. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index ended 24.3 points higher at 4,385.7 according to the latest data. The index rose 0.6 percent on Monday. Bellwether miners BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto climbed 1.1 percent and 1.4 percent respectively. "There's some optimism at the moment about the Americans doing something constructive about their fiscal cliff problem," said Damien Boey, equity strategist at Credit Suisse. "People have also been a bit more inspired by the fact that the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) is willing to cut rates into this cycle." Australia's central bank said it was still open to interest rate cuts but judged it appropriate to leave policy unchanged earlier this month due to a pick-up in inflation at home and a slightly more positive global backdrop. U.S. markets will be closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday. Lynas Corp soared 4 percent after it said it expects to start processing rare earth minerals from a plant in Malaysia next month, despite opposition from environmentalists over health concerns. Origin Energy jumped 3.2 percent, after media reported Royal Dutch Shell might feed its gas into other LNG projects in the area due to rising costs. New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index rose 0.8 percent, or 30.4 points to 3,973. (Reporting by Thuy Ong; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions