Afternoon (PM) Market Report

Details

Published on Thursday, 01 September 2016 07:00

The Australian market opened flat on the back of little changes on Wall Street overnight.

Thursday, 1st September 2016

The Australian market continued its recent downward trend today to post moderate losses at close. Heavy sell-offs were experienced across the mining and energy sectors due to falling commodity prices overnight, wiping off positive results from the major lenders. There were mixed results from the sectors; consumer staples were the best performer for this session while energy and materials lagged behind the rest. The Australian dollar appreciated against most major currencies, with the exception of the New Zealand dollar.

The All Ordinaries fell 18.20 points (-0.33%) to 5,511.20 while the S&P/ASX 200 lost 17.40 points (-0.32%) to 5,415.60.

Qube Holdings announced the successful completion of the bookbuild for its recently launched offer of Qube Subordinated Notes. Strong support for the Offer from brokers and institutional investors in Australia resulted in a significantly oversubscribed orderbook. The Company elected to bring forward the bookbuild date which was scheduled to occur on or before 6 September 2016. Following completion of the bookbuild, it has elected to increase the offer size to $300m, inclusive of an allocation to the Shareholder Offer. As a result of the strong demand received, the Company will not proceed with the General Offer. QUB dropped 1 cent (-0.39%) to $2.53.

Oil Search provided exploration and appraisal drilling update for the period August 2016. During the month, the Strickland 1 well was side tracked twice due to two stuck pipe events - the first in the Strickland 1 wellbore and the second in Strickland 1 ST1. At the end of the month, Strickland 1 ST2 was re-drilling the Ieru formation in a 12-1/4" hole and preparing to run 9-5/8" intermediate casing. OSH slid 6 cents (-0.97%) to $6.66.

The NZX added 24.36 points (0.33%) to 7,423.19 while the Nikkei gained 39.44 points (0.23%) to close at 16,926.84.

The Australian dollar was last quoted at 75.33 US cents.