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MELBOURNE - The Australian stock market closed in positive territory today, buoyed by a modest gain from BHP Billiton, despite no lead from Wall Street.
US markets were closed overnight for the Labor Day holiday, providing no lead for the local bourse.
At the close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 26 points at 6293.3, while the all ordinaries gained 24.6 points to 6297.1.
At 1618 AEST on the Sydney Futures Exchange, the September share price index contract was 20 points lower at 6279, on a volume of 19,400 contracts.
CMC Markets senior dealer Josh Whiting said the market made modest gains despite the absence of a lead from Wall Street.
"Without a US lead we didn't expect a big day, we've just seen a modest rally, with BHP one of the biggest leaders of the index higher," Mr Whiting said.
"We have seen some of the blue-chip stocks making some modest gains and building on what's been a fairly slow recovery in the index this week."
Mr Whiting expected the market to continue on its positive run for the rest of the week following bullish comments by US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke on the US economy.
"A lot of our lead now that the reporting season is over is coming from the US and we've had comments from Bernanke on Friday which seems fairly positive," he said.
"Bernanke's comments were fairly bullish and that's helping support things for the rest of the week."
The big miners were mixed, with BHP Billiton adding one cent to A$38.58 and Rio Tinto steady at A$94.10.
The banking sector was mixed, with National Australia Bank adding 28 cents to A$40.20, Westpac picking up 17 cents to A$27.58, Commonwealth Bank finding 38 cents to A$55.65 and ANZ losing five cents to A$29.17.
Sugar producer and building products group CSR dropped 22 cents to A$3.11 after the company forecast that group earnings for fiscal 2008 would be lower than in the previous year.
Health and beauty products group Healthzone added five cents to 48 cents after the group acquired the national health food distribution and retail franchise businesses of Health Minders Pty Ltd for A$11.9 million in cash and scrip.
Broadband phone company Engin added one cent to 15 cents after the group took a 10.38 per cent stake in wireless broadband provider Unwired Group.
Unwired lost four cents to 36.5 cents.
The retailers were stronger, with Woolworths adding 41 cents to A$29.88, Coles gaining four cents to A$14.24, David Jones picking up five cents to A$5.22 and Harvey Norman climbing five cents higher to A$5.45.
The media sector was mixed, with PBL adding 17 cents to A$18.17, News Corp shedding eight cents to A$26.55, its non-voting shares losing 13 cents to A$24.75 and Fairfax dipping one cent to A$4.59.
The energy sector was mixed, with Woodside picking up 40 cents to A$45.55, Santos dipping one cent to A$13.07 and Oil Search losing seven cents to A$3.62.
Oil giant Shell today inked an offtake agreement with PetroChina International for the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the emerging Gorgon project in Western Australia.
The spot price of gold was slightly higher and at 1628 AEST was trading at US$673.40 an ounce, up 85 US cents an ounce on yesterday's local close.
The gold miners were mixed, with Newcrest steady at A$24.40, Newmont dipping eight cents to A$5.12 and Lihir dropping one cent A$3.06.
Lihir said today striking employees at its namesake gold mine in Papua New Guinea were expected to return to work tonight after after four days of strike action.
Newsat was the most traded stock today, with 503 million shares changing hands worth A$4.3 million.
The broadband services and equipment provider added 0.1 cent to 0.7 cents.
Preliminary market turnover reached 2.33 billion, worth A$5.16 billion, with 625 stocks moving up, 611 moving down and 310 unchanged.
- AAP