Reuters: Hot Stocks: Australia shares end up aided by miners, high-yield stocks

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 end up aided by miners, high-yield stocks Feb 1st 2013, 05:43 Fri Feb 1, 2013 12:43am EST (Updates with closing levels, comments) By Victoria Thieberger MELBOURNE Feb 1 (Reuters) - Australian shares resumed their upward climb on Friday, rising 0.9 percent as another jump in iron ore prices boosted miners and foreign investors continued to chase high-yielding stocks, but analysts cautioned the market was due for a pullback. Global miners BHP Billiton gained 1.2 percent and Rio Tinto ended up 1.3 percent. The market surged 4.9 percent in January -- building on a 3.2 percent rise in December and the biggest monthly percentage gain since January 2012. "While January is seasonally a solid month, February is often soft and after the huge gains since the last correction in November, shares are overbought and vulnerable to a short-term pullback or consolidation," said AMP Capital head of investment strategy Shane Oliver. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index ended up 42.3 points at 4,921.1, its highest close since April 11, 2011. The index fell 0.4 percent on Thursday to break a 10-day run of gains. The index slipped briefly after the release of softer-than-expected Chinese purchasing managers' data, after a run of recent solid economic figures, but soon recovered. "Australia is a high-yielding country and there are a lot of foreign funds coming here and that is supporting the market," said Macquarie Equities division director Lucinda Chan. She said blue-chip shares with good dividend yields were in favour ahead of company reporting season, including a 2.3 percent jump for National Australia Bank on Friday after a broker upgrade and a 1.1 percent gain for telecom firm Telstra Corp. Second-tier financials also benefited, such as insurer Suncorp, up 2.45 percent and Bank of Queensland up 3.4 percent. Linc Energy slumped after updating its outlook for oil and gas production. The shares ended down 11.5 percent. Karoon Gas Australia Ltd shares jumped 3.4 percent, a day after announcing an oil find at its Kangaroo 1 well in Brazil. Shares in outdoor clothing and camping gear retailer Kathmandu Holdings jumped 4.5 percent after the firm raised its first-half profit guidance to a gain of up to 75 percent, on same-store sales growth of 6.1 percent. New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index slipped 6.7 points to 4,245.9. (Reporting by Victoria Thieberger; Editing by Jacqueline Wong) 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