Reuters: Hot Stocks: Australian and NZ shares scale record closing highs

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Australian and NZ shares scale record closing highs May 13th 2013, 06:43 Mon May 13, 2013 2:43am EDT (Adds details, comments) SYDNEY May 13 (Reuters) - Australian shares ended a volatile session 0.1 percent higher on Monday, helped by another record run on Wall Street and a weak Australia dollar, but gains were capped by the banking sector. Stocks with a large exposure to the U.S. markets rallied as the Australian dollar hovered around $1.0004 after falling below parity on Friday to $0.9961, its lowest since June 2012. Property and casualty insurer QBE Insurance climbed 3.4 percent, Brambles added 0.4 percent while biotechnology firm CSL Ltd rose 0.7 percent. Global miners BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto Ltd fell 0.6 percent and 1.5 percent respectively as China reported annual industrial output growth quickened to 9.3 percent in April but still missed market expectation. "Most of the figures didn't shoot the lights out but didn't disappoint either, so if you look at the expectation against what the actual result was, for most of them they were slightly worse than expected, but only very very modestly," said Steven Daghlian, stock market analyst at Commonwealth Securities. The S&P/ASX 200 index inched 4.2 points higher to 5,210.3, a fresh five-year closing high, according to the latest data. The index edged up 0.2 percent on Friday. "[Whether we can hold at these levels] depends on what we see develop offshore and in Australia on the economic front," Daghlian said. "In terms of how the market has actually performed, we've had a pretty good run." Financials finished the day moderately weaker. Westpac Banking Corp lost 3.2 percent, its largest single day drop in a year while Investment bank Macquarie Group Ltd fell 1.1 percent as both banks traded ex-dividend. Drug delivery manufacturer Unilife Corp rocketed 57 percent higher to A$0.74. The company on Friday reported a smaller net loss and general expenses. Engineering services group Coffey International Ltd crashed 56.5 percent to A$0.10 after the company announced revisions to its full year earnings estimates, saying a significant softening in Australian market conditions has led to increased project cancellations and delays. The Dow and S&P 500 ended at record highs on Friday, and stocks posted a third consecutive week of gains as a rise in Google and other technology shares offset a slide in energy stocks. New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index added 0.4 percent or 18.9 points to notch a fresh record closing high of 4,671.6. (Reporting by Thuy Ong; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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