At lunch the Australian sharemarket is having a much better day, with the All Ordinaries index (XAO) around 0.4 pct or 19.7 pts higher to 4533.5. Close to all sectors are higher, with gains from the banks and miners helping to keep the market in positive territory.

The country's largest miner, BHP Billiton (BHP) is up 0.88 pct or 37 cents to $42.57 while the smaller RIO Tinto (RIO) is 0.63 pct or 50 cents higher to $80.30.

The 4 big banks are gaining strongly, with Westpac (WBC) up 1.36 pct or 28 cents to $21.57, National Australia Bank (NAB) 0.9 pct or 22 cents higher to $24.72, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is rising by 0.83 pct or 43 cents to $50.88 and ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) is 0.52 pct or 11 cents stronger to $21.35.

Upmarket department store owner, David Jones (DJS) is down 1.48 pct or 6 cents to $3.99 while its competitor Myer (MYR) is currently flat.

Oil and gas producers are doing it a little tougher than most after the price of crude oil hit a fresh 4 month low overnight. Woodside Petroleum (WPL) is down 0.18 pct or 7 cents to $39.89 while Santos (STO) is off 0.15 pct or 2 cents to $12.92.

Australia's largest telco, Telstra (TLS) is up 0.69 pct or 2 cents to $2.91 however is still trading under the $3.00 mark for the fourth straight session.

Following the end of daylight savings in April this year, major Asian markets will be trading between the hours mentioned below until mid October.

Asian Markets

The Hong Kong sharemarket trades in two sessions each day and will now be opening for trade between 11.30am (AEST) and 2pm (AEST) and then between 3.30pm (AEST) and 6pm (AEST) in its second session.

Out of Japan, the first session will be between 10am (AEST) and 12pm (AEST), while the second session is between 1.30pm (AEST) and 4pm (AEST).

The Singapore exchange will be open for trade between 11am (AEST) and 2.30pm (AEST) for the first session and then between 4pm (AEST) and 7pm (AEST) in its second session.

The Asian sharemarkets are mostly stronger, with Japan's Nikkei 225 index up 1.25 pct or 119.38 pts to 9697.69, South Korea's KOSPI index is up 1.08 pct or 22.4 pts to 2092.69, Hong Kong's Hang Seng is 0.73 pct or 160.18 pts higher to 22201.95 and shares in both Taiwan and the Philippines are slightly stronger.

No major economic news is scheduled for release today; however the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) Assistant Governor Guy Debelle is delivering a talk titled "Collateral, Funding and Liquidity".

The best performing stock at lunch is Acclaim Exploration (AEX), which is up 50 pct or 0.1 cent to 0.3 cents. AEX is a mineral exploration company based in Western Australia. It was first listed in 1984 and has a market capitalisation (the number of shares on issue multiplied by its current share price) of just over $5.1 million.

So far today, 961 million shares have been traded worth $1.97 billion. 527 shares are up, 431 are lower and 434 are currently unchanged.

The Australian dollar is a little stronger and buys US104.6 cents.

Steven Daghlian
Commsec Market Analyst