Stock Market Opens Higher

Yesterday with the not-so-promising trading volumes, the Australian stock market closed on a low note with S&P/ASX200 down 11.0 points and All Ordinaries down 10.4 points.

Today, however, despite the volatile US and European markets, the S&P/ASX200 index was up 27.4 points while the All Ordinaries was also up 25.7 points.

There’s a mix of reaction by the investors as there is a downward shift in New York manufacturing while an upturn in industrial production.  After Commonwealth Bank’s (CBA) reporting of its $7.1 billion profit, there has been a renewed interest in investing with the banks.

CBA is leading the banks with it being up by 58 cents.  ANZ is up by 29 cents, Westpac by 28.5 cents, and NAB by three cents.

Looking at the resources stocks, BHP Billiton is up nine cents while Rio Tinto is down 28 cents.

In the US on Wednesday, the S&P500 closed at 1405.53 showing a 0.11% increase, the Dow Jones indus average lost 0.06 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index showed an additional 0.46 percent at 3030.93.

Asian stocks experienced losses for the 3rd time in the last four days due to Europe’s unstable market.  Japan’s Nikkei, MSCI Asia Pacific, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, and China’s Shanghai Composite all fell flat.  There has been negative response in the stock market as China’s economic expansion is coming to a halt.

After losses in Asia, the European stock market lost some shares except for Standard Chartered whose shares were up.  CAC40 was up 0.30 percent at 3460.70 while London FTSE and the DAX30 in Frankfurt suffered losses.