Australian Investment Blog

• The ASX 200 had a choppy day, trading as high as 5982 prior to the RBA’s surprise April interest rate announcement. Investors including ourselves incorrectly anticipated a rate cut this afternoon. However, the RBA loves to surprise and decided to leave rates unchanged at 2.25%, sending traders to sell their “long high yielding stocks” and close the ASX 200 only 27 points higher at 5926.• The banking sector had an incredible run ahead of the RBA meeting, with ANZ and WBC hitting their all-time highs at $37.25 and $40.07 respectively, NAB hit their 2015 highs at $39.62. Again, after the surprise RBA announcement of no change to interest rates, ANZ closed 23c higher (+0.6%) at $36.90, CBA down 19c (0.2%) at $94.21, NAB up 64c (+1.7%) at $39.33 and WBC up 21c (+0.5%) at $39.66. Subscribers received an alert on Shawn taking profit on one of the ‘big 4’.• The Iron Ore sector was closely watched today, after Atlas Iron (AGO) went into trading halt as it reviews its assets due to the falling commodity, Iron Ore. The ‘big players’, BHP and RIO however, rallied up 0.8% at $30.45 and 0.7% at $56.15 respectively. Fortescue Metals (FMG) however, suffered from this news, down 1.4% at $1.795 after being up early to $1.87.• The Gold sector rallied, as anticipated, with Newcrest (NCM) up 1.1% at $13.93 and Regis Resources (RRL) up 4.3% at $1.34.• The Oil sector also had a good day, Santos (STO) closed 2.2% higher at $7.10 and Oil Search (OSH) up 1.8% at $7.23. Subscribers also received an alert on a buy transaction on an oil sector.