Market report: ASX down slightly despite another rally on Wall Street overnight

The Australian Stock Market just managed to stayed ahead for the week this week, as weakness from major sectors pushed down on the market.

The heavily weighted mining sector provided the biggest drag as investors reacted to weaker metals prices in anticipation of weaker CPI data out China. Australian energy and financial stocks were also weaker today.

Overnight, Wall Street continued its rally after further encouraging news on the jobs front. This helped to spur investors in Asia today, where positive economic data out of Japan also helped to push major bourses into positive territory.

Locally the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed down 21.9 points today, at 4560.3 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index fell 20.6 points, or 0.5 per cent, at 4600.7.

The S&P ASX/200 Healthcare Index dropped a full 1.49 percent today to close at 8176.9 points, 138 points down for the week.

Among the top winners today was stem cell specialists Mesoblast, which gained 8.8 percent to close at $2.35. Nanotechnology specialists Starpharma also performed well, rising 6.73 percent to close at $0.55.

Monoclonal anti-body company Prima BioMed was the most actively traded stock today, with 12.8 million shares changing hands. It’s shares closed up half a cent to $010.

Looking at the majors CSL shed two percent to close at $32.34. Cochlear also disappointed, losing 2.2 percent to close at 70.71, while ResMed managed a 2.15 percent gain to $32.37.