Australia Stocks Rebound With Oil, Gold Prices

It was commodities that killed Australia stocks on Monday, and it was commodities that fueled a modest rebound early Tuesday, as the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7% to claw back a little of its 2% drop the previous session. A bounce back in oil prices sent Oil Search Ltd. up 5.1%, Woodside Petroleum Ltd. up 2.2%, and Karoon Gas Australia Ltd. up 3%. The moves in the gold-miner shares were even more dramatic as gold futures rebounded, with Newcrest Mining Ltd. up 7.2%, Kingsgate Consolidated Ltd. up 9.7% and Evolution Mining Ltd. exploding more than 18% higher. Iron ore was a different story, however, with the main players falling further after losing ground on Monday's weak China data: BC Iron Ltd. lost 1%, Atlas Iron Ltd. tumbled 5.7%, and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. was down 1.9% as Morgans analysts cut their price target on the shares, citing concerns over the iron outlook, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Also on the Fortescue news front, the Australian Financial Review reported that the miner is expected to unveil more cost-cutting measures by the end of the week. Outside the resource sectors, shares of Ten Network dropped 5.1% as The Australian reported that a joint bid by Foxtel (owned by Telstra Corp. and MarketWatch corporate parent News Corp. ) and Discovery Communications Inc. would likely come in too low to gain acceptance from the Ten board. Shares of Telstra were flat in early moves, while those of News Corp. rose 0.5%. Meanwhile, the market was also awaiting a policy decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia later in the day, with no change to the benchmark polciy rate expected.

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