Volumes Surge As Investors Rush To Unwind Futures Contracts
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday June 20, 2003
About $3.5 billion in trades $1 billion more than June's daily average were pushed through the sharemarket yesterday as derivatives traders unwound their ASX 200 share price index futures contracts on the expiry.
The S&P/ASX 200 rose 13.8 points to 3104 and the All Ordinaries was up 13.2 points to 3070.9 after strong buying near the close.
Wall Street pulled back on Wednesday night after some disappointing corporate news.
The Dow Jones fell 29.2 to 9293.8, the S&P 500 fell 1.6 to 1010.1 and the Nasdaq firmed 8.7 to 1677.1.
Japan's Nikkei rose 17.5 to 9110.5 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 10.3 to 9980.6.
Speculation about interest rate cuts and attractive yields drew investors to the bank sector as CBA rose 32c to $30.38, Westpac rose 21c to $16.69, ANZ rose 9c to $19.23 and St George rose 20c to $21.85.
IAG, liked by investors for its good dividend yield and strong position in the insurance market, climbed 12c to $3.40.
AMP rose a further 6c to $5.31 in the wake of its decision to dispose of its strategic stake in Axa Asia Pacific.
The resource sector was under pressure as analysts slashed earnings forecasts for WMC Resources by as much as 58 per cent after it downgraded its first-half earnings forecasts on Wednesday.
Austock Brokers' Marshall Biggins said the downgrade had sparked switching out of WMC and Rio Tinto into BHP Billiton. ``The other two stocks are more growth stocks versus BHP which is perceived as less risk," Mr Biggins said.
WMC fell a further 8c to $3.47 and Rio fell 36c to $30.35. BHP rose 5c to $9.01.
Foster's rose 6c to $4.37 as rumours that a consortium was considering a bid for its Australian Leisure and Hospitality division continued.
PaperlinX fell 15c to $4.63 after the paper maker sold $240 million of new shares to institutions at $4.46 to fund the purchase of Buhrmann's paper sales division.
Computershare rose 7c to $1.90 after Computershare Analytics, a division of the share registry, signed a distribution deal with Track Data Corp.
Brambles bounced 7c to $4.50 after falling 9c to $4.43 on Wednesday in response to rumours it had lost an offshore customer and was planning to downgrade earnings forecasts.
Media stocks were mixed. News Corp fell 5c to $11.88 after US media group EchoStar Satellite Corp criticised News Corp's plans to control DirecTV.
EchoStar argued that News should not be allowed to control DirecTV because that would pose a threat to US consumers.
© 2003 Sydney Morning Herald