Australia Stocks End Higher, Led by Commodity Shares

   By Rebecca Thurlow

SYDNEY--Australian shares rose as mining and energy stocks bounced and attention turned to the Reserve Bank of Australia's policy meeting.

The S&P/ASX 200 ended 25 points, or 0.5%, higher at 5587.4 on Monday, as bets rose that the RBA will cut interest rates at its meeting Tuesday for the first time since May.

In the energy sector, Woodside Petroleum ended 1.9% higher and Oil Search rose 2.8%.

Diversified mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton rose 0.3% and 0.8%, respectively. Elsewhere in the materials sector, gold miner Newcrest Mining rose 1.3% and iron-ore miner Fortescue Metals Group rose 0.9%.

One weak spot was the health-care sector, with hospital operator Healthscope falling 1.7% and hearing-implant maker Cochlear ending 1% lower.

The consumer-discretionary sector also ended down as department-store owner Myer Holdings fell 3.4% and Harvey Norman Holdings slipped 0.4%.

Fairfax Media fell 1.9% after announcing it will book 989 million Australian dollars (US$751.1 million) of pre-tax impairment charges relating to its newspaper publishing assets in the 2016 financial year.

REA Group, owner of property-listings website realestate.com.au, fell 3.7% after Fairfax also revealed strong numbers for its rival property website Domain. Carving out its reporting of Domain from its less profitable newspaper publishing business, Fairfax revealed Domain's profit rose 74% in its fiscal first half from a year ago, while revenue rose 63%, as the company invested heavily in the business.

Write to Rebecca Thurlow at rebecca.thurlow@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 01, 2016 03:26 ET (07:26 GMT)

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