Australian stocks finished flat despite the big miners came back into favour amid weakness in the Australian dollar.
Options Xpress market analyst Ben Le Brun said the local market had not followed on from strong offshore leads as cyclical sectors of the market came back into vogue.
“It was the defensive sectors of the market that lost ground after broker calls saying the banking sector is quite overvalued and resources and materials now represent good value,” Mr Le Brun said.
It appeared there was a lot of offshore selling going on due to the weaker currency.
All of the big four retail banks were weaker, with the Commonwealth Bank losing $1.71 cents at $66.89, National Australia Bank shedding 57 cents to $30.55, Westpac giving up 75 cents to $28.72 and ANZ dumping 48 cents to $27.60.
ANZ Bank announced on Wednesday that it was going to spend $425 million buying back some of its shares.
Health care stocks as well News Corp and Brambles all benefited from the lower Australian dollar.
Brambles was up 27 cents at $9.34, News Corp was $1.05 higher at $34.77 and its non voting shares were up 93 cents at $34.53.
The big miners, whose earnings are nominated in US dollars did well, with BHP Billiton up 89 cents to $34.87 and Rio Tinto adding $1.82 cents to $54.70.
Gaming machine supplier Aristocrat Leisure rose 25 cents, or 6.2 per cent, to $4.30 after reporting a 11.6 per cent lift in net profit to $52.6 million for the six months to March 31.
Westfield shares fell 10 cents to $11.82 after its chairman Frank Lowy to the shopping centre group’s annual general meeting that there had been little improvement in Australian retail conditions so far in 2013.
Employment services group Programmed Maintenance Services’ shares rose by 13 cents to $2.28 after announcing a $32.1 million net profit for the year to March 31.
KEY FACTS
* At the close on Wednesday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 4.0 points, or 0.08 per cent, at 4,974.7 points.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was 8.6 points, or 0.17 per cent, higher at 4,959.2.
* The June share price index futures contract was 5.0 points stronger at 4,970 with 31,993 contracts traded.
* National turnover was 1.5 billion securities worth $4.8 billion.
