Household brands Woolworths and Telstra Heavy Lifting

Offshore jitters sent ripples through to Australian stocks. The open saw the local equities take 65 points off the index, catalysed by a mass-exit in energy stocks, yet again.

BHP has been the target of concentrated selling across the week. The major miner has chalked up a handful of records this week, records which shareholders would rather forget. BHP’s share price has hit fresh five-year lows twice this week, with Thursday morning nudging at a new six year low. The miner’s exposure to oil has seen it receive preferential selling over its peer RIO across the week.

Monthly jobs data was unleashed ahead of lunch bringing a hint of cheer to local investors. The slight nudge up in the unemployment rate to 6.3% was overlooked off in light of the addition of 42.7K jobs last month, which considerably beat the expected 15.2K. Jobs data acted as a booster for the local bourse, as investors began to erase most of the morning’s losses.

In afternoon trading, green sprouts multiplied on the screens. Telstra and Woolworths were the sessions’ heavy lifters with WOW reversing the morning’s losses to trade 0.44% by the afternoon as bargain hunters stepped in.

Currently the local dollar sits around the 0.833 mark, recovering 30 pips across the session. Friday’s direction for Australian shares and currency may be dependent on retail sales and unemployment claims due out of Wall Street overnight.