The Australian market is making a notable recovery on Thursday, winning back the losses of the past two days and following a mostly positive trend from the earnings in the global market overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is performing well above the 7,800 mark, backed by gains in technology, finance stocks and gold miners.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index is showing an uptick, adding 38.50 points or 0.50 percent to its tally, bringing it to 7,821.00, just after reaching an earlier high of 7,834.40. The broader All Ordinaries Index trails not too far behind, growing by 40.40 points or 0.50 percent to 8,074.00. There was a major plunge in the Australian stock market on Wednesday, however.
Most major miners are experiencing slight losses. Both Rio Tinto and BHP Group's stocks are dipping by 0.3 to 0.5 percent each, while stocks of Fortescue Metals are declining over 1 percent. Meanwhile, Mineral Resources is seeing a boost of over 1 percent.
There's a mixed situation in oil stocks. While stocks of Woodside Energy and Origin Energy are dropping by around 1 and 0.2 percent respectively, Santos and Beach energy are marginally ahead by 0.3 to 0.5 percent.
In the technology sector, Appen is enjoying a surge of over 7 percent, and Afterpay owner, Block, is noting nearly 1 percent growth. Parallelly, WiseTech Global and Xero each report close to 2 percent growth. On the other hand, Zip is facing a decrease of nearly 1 percent.
Among the top four banks, Westpac, Commonwealth Bank, and ANZ Banking are all adding close to 1 percent to their value, while National Australia Bank is slightly up by 0.4 percent.
In the gold mining industry, Evolution Mining is up by almost 2 percent, Newmont is slightly ahead with an increase of 0.4 percent, and Resolute Mining is booming by over 3 percent. Meanwhile, Northern Star Resources and Gold Road Resources each are making gains of nearly 1 percent.
In economic updates, March saw a quicker expansion rate in Australia's services sector, as recently revealed in a survey by Judo Bank. The services PMI score improved to 54.4 from 53.1 in February, indicating growth.
However, the total monthly number of building approvals issued in the country declined by a seasonally adjusted 1.9 percent to 12,520 in February, as per data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This was a miss relative to the expected 3.0 percent spike, following a dropdown of 1.0 percent in January. Year-on-year, overall approvals were down by 5.8 percent. The total permitted building value also plummeted 16.5 percent, after a 14.5 percent rise in January.
On the foreign exchange front, the Aussie dollar is being traded at $0.658 on Thursday.
On Wall Street, despite an initial downward trajectory, stocks spent most of Wednesday in the green. However, buying interest decreased later in the session, resulting in mixed closing figures for the major averages.
Although the Dow dipped slightly by 43.10 points or 0.1 percent to 39,127.14, marking its third straight session closing lower, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq improved by 5.68 points or 0.1 percent to 5,211.49, and 37.00 points or 0.2 percent to 16,277.46, respectively.
Simultaneously, major European markets were mostly positive. The German DAX Index grew by 0.5 percent, the French CAC 40 Index by 0.3 percent, and the UK's FTSE 100 Index closed just above the breaking point.
Finally, crude oil prices experienced an uptick on Wednesday following the conclusion of the OPEC meeting, which ended without any changes to production policies. Therefore, the West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May closed higher by $0.28 or 0.33 percent, at $85.43 per barrel.
