Australian stocks pared back earlier gains to close marginally stronger as investors awaited firmer direction from economic events offshore.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 5.9 points, or 0.14 per cent, at 4,269.2, while the broader All Ordinaries index had risen 7.7 points, or 0.18 per cent, to 4,341.4.
The September share price index futures contract gained seven points to 4,255 points, on 31,502 contracts traded.
The local market opened almost one per cent firmer but eased in morning trade amid lacklustre volumes.
“It’s very quiet,” Bell Potter senior adviser Stuart Smith said.
“The private investors are already committed and they are just sitting there spectating and thankful that the market is going up.”
MF Global head of equity sales Nick Burmester said positive news from European and US markets on Tuesday, which had buoyed the Australian bourse at the open, had been overshadowed by investors’ concerns about figures due from the US including jobs data later in the week.
“People aren’t really willing to put new positions (down) while it’s still so uncertain … it’s a very skittish market.”
Mr Burmester said a key market driver was speculation that Telstra’s negotiations with the federal government over the National Broadband Network (NBN) would be delayed.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said on Tuesday it could not accept Telstra’s move to separate its retail and wholesale arms from 2018 – a key part of the federal government’s plan for the NBN – because it had no compliance plan. The telco closed down eight cents, or 2.61 per cent, at $2.99.
“Telstra’s the main thing that’s probably dragged part of the index down this afternoon … it dropped 3 per cent immediately (after the ACCC’s announcement),” he said.
Making news on Tuesday, Macarthur Coal was up six cents at $15.88 after it advised its shareholders to accept a revised, $4.8 billion joint takeover offer by the world’s largest steel maker ArcelorMittal and US coal miner Peabody Energy.
Among the big miners, BHP Billiton was up 20 cents at $39.35 and Rio Tinto was $1.18 higher at $71.79.
In the retail sector, Harvey Norman shares fell three cents to $2.00 after it presented a cautious outlook for the year ahead even though net profit rose nine per cent to $252.26 million.
Among the big banks, ANZ was down three cents at $20.18, Commonwealth Bank dropped three cents to $47.93, NAB was 22 cents firmer at $23.66 and Westpac advanced six cents to $20.48.
The price of gold in Sydney was $US1,796.15 per ounce, down $21.73 from Monday’s local close of $US1,817.88 per ounce.
National turnover was 2.54 billion shares changing hands for $5.85 billion.
There were 595 stocks up, 430 down and 366 steady.
