Australia Stocks recover ground on bargain hunting

The Australian share market finished session higher on Wednesday, 28 October 2020, as investors chased for bottom fishing on recently battered stocks, with sentiment was boosted by a string of positive quarterly updates and inflation data that met market expectations. Among ASX sectors, substantial gains for technology, consumer staples and healthcare broadly offset losses among the financial and energy sectors. The materials and consumer discretionary sectors were also made positive inroads.

At closing bell, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index added 6.72 points, or 0.11%, to 6,057.74. The broader All Ordinaries climbed up 14.57 points, or 0.23%, to 6,261.79.

Shares of the gold companies surged as prices of the yellow metal benefited from uncertainties about U.S. elections and surging global COVID-19 cases. Gold explorer Ramelius Resources surged more than 7% as it reported a higher-than-expected gold production in the September quarter.

Tech stocks were also higher, with buy-now-pay-later firm Afterpay jumping about 7% after its underlying sales in the first-quarter more than doubled.

The consumer sector also climbed, with the country's No. 2 supermarket chain Coles Group posting a rise in first-quarter sales.

Blackmores (BKL) was the most improved on the ASX 200 with the vitamin company surging 13.7%. It had announced yesterday that it was selling its Global Therapeutics business to McPherson's (MCP) for $27 million. MCP completed its institutional capital raise to fund the acquisition and fell 7.7%.

Afterpay (APT) was another standout with the BNPL provider lifting 7.3% on a quarterly update this morning. APT recorded underlying sales of $4.1 billion for the September quarter, which was more than double a year ago. Sales in Aus/NZ totalled $2.2 billion while US sales came in at $1.6 billion and saw the most impressive improvement of 229%. Active customers nearly doubled to 11.2 million while merchants rose 70% to 63,800.

CURRENCY NEWS: The Australian dollar traded at $0.7139, following an earlier low of $0.7111.

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