Company Interview / the COB: miners' moment

Australia’s stocks resisted the global downtrend to extend a rally on Thursday, fueled by persistent confidence over China's aggressive stimulus package.  The S&P/ASX200 finished 1% higher at 8203.70 points, with miners once again gaining strongly.Consumer Discretionary was the best performing sector, up 2.1%, while energy was the only negative sector as crude oil prices slumped. Australian manufacturer, Brickworks was the day's biggest mover, jumping just over 7%. This comes after the company released its FY24 results, showcasing a total revenue down 8% to $1,089 million and fully franked full year dividend up 3% to 67 cents per share. Washington H Soul Pattinson, which has a stake in Brickworks, rose 2.2% after releasing its result. Troubled casino operator, Star Entertainment finally released its FY results to market, narrowing its statutory loss to $1.7 billion. The Bureau of Statistics released its latest quarterly job vacancies data. With consistent tightness occurring in the labour market, there were 330,000 job vacancies in August, a 5.2 per cent decline from May. However, while the number of job vacancies are currently below the peak of 473,000 in May 2022, they still remain 45% higher than before the COVID pandemic.  Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank released its latest bi-annual financial stability review, showing less than 1% of owner-occupied housing loans are 90 or more days in arrears with just 0.5% estimated to be in negative equity, where an outstanding loan exceeds the value of a property.