Australia Market ends mixed

The Australian market finished session mixed on Friday, 09 April 2021, as positive lead from Wall Street overnight was offset by cautious over the delay in vaccine rollouts. At closing bell, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 was down 3.60 points, or 0.05%, to 6,995.17. The broader All Ordinaries added 1.94 points, or 0.03%, to 7,252.25.

Healthcare stocks tumbled with sector giant CSL, which has the contract to make 50 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine domestically, dropping as much as 1.4% after Australia on Thursday made a policy shift to recommend the use of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine for people over 50 amid concerns about links to risks of blood clots with AstraZeneca's shot.

Energy stocks fell after U.S. oil prices eased overnight. Woodside Petroleum and Santos fell as much as 1.4% and 1.5%, respectively.

ECONOMIC NEWS: Australia AiG Services Sector Expands Further In March- Australia services sector continued to expand in March with a seasonally adjusted Performance of Services Index score of 58.7, the latest survey from the Australian Industry Group showed on Friday. That's up from 55.8 in February and it moves further above the boom-or-but line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction. It also marked the highest reading for the index since June 2018. Individually, sales, new orders, stocks and deliveries all showed solid expansion - while employment was slightly soft.

CURRENCY NEWS: The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7609, off an earlier high of $0.7661.

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