Stocks finish flat in choppy trade

The local bourse ended mixed following a weak lead from a lightly-traded session on Wall Street overnight.

The information boards at the Australian Securities Exchange in Sydney. (AAP Image/Craig Golding)

The local sharemarket has ended mixed after a choppy day of trade and a weak lead from a lightly-traded session on Wall Street overnight.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 closed down 1.2 points, or 0.02 per cent, at 5,738.1 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index edged up 1.9 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 5807.1 points.

“The day was very quiet today and that followed on from the US last night where the Bond market was close for Columbus Day, but the stock market was open,” said Bell Potter director of institutional sales and trading, Richard Coppleson.

CommSec Market Analyst Steven Daghlian described the movement as modest, saying no sector is doing well enough to drive the market higher.

“We’re still pretty close to the best levels in about a month,” he said.

“We’ve had a few sessions that have been quite impressive, yesterday we had shares edging higher, Friday was the best day in about three months.”

Financials were relatively flat, with NAB losing 0.25 per cent to $31.63, Commonwealth Bank shedding 0.47 per cent to $76.35, Westpac adding on 0.05 per cent to $32.41, while ANZ rose 0.24 per cent to $29.77.

Listed gold miners continued to perform well after the price of gold climbed for the third day in a row and the WA opposition signalled it would oppose changes to gold royalties included in the WA budget.

Newcrest Mining gained 1.01 per cent to $21.99. Northern Star rose 1.01 per cent to $4.98 and St Barbara added 1.12 per cent to $2.71.

The big miners edged lower as weakness in the iron ore price continued to weigh on investors, with BHP dipping 0.23 per cent to $26.50 and Rio Tinto inching 0.06 per cent lower to $69.16, as Fortescue gained 0.60 per cent to $5.05.

Energy stocks fell despite a slight rise in the price of oil on Monday. Woodside Petroleum dropped 0.55 per cent to $28.69 and Santos fell 0.25 per cent to $4.04. Oil Search sank 1.80 per cent to $7.08, while WorleyParsons remained in a trading halt.

Origin Energy fell 1.27 per cent to $7.00. It came after chief executive Frank Calabria told the national energy summit in Sydney that the government should support a clean energy target because it is “better than no solution at all”.

Elsewhere, A2 Milk was among the best performers, leaping 2.98 per cent to $6.91. AMP surged 3.55 per cent to $4.96, after being upgrade to “outperform” from “neutral” by Credit Suisse in early trade.

Treasury Wine Estates fell 1.41 per cent to $14.00 after it informed the ASX that Northern California wildfires had caused “limited” damage to infrastructure and vineyards.

The company noted that while most of its vineyards and wineries aren’t in the direct fire zones, the fires are ongoing and it still has limited access to all of its assets.

Mantra continued to make gains after soaring yesterday after the company confirmed a non-binding bid from Accor had been made. Mantra etched up gains of 1.33 per cent to $3.81.

The Australian dollar was trading at US77.86 cents at 5.02pm (AEDT).