The sharemarket was flat today after reaching a multi-year high amid mixed earnings reports, benign minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia's January board meeting, and a lack of direction from US markets after Presidents' Day.
Investors remained positive about the earnings season, with a number of major companies enjoying higher share prices before their reports this week. Uncertainty about upcoming elections in Italy wasn't having any discernible impact on the market.
The RBA left the door open to more interest-rate cuts if the economy weakens, but signalled it satisfied a more than year-long spate of reductions were helping stimulate the economy.
At 12.30pm AEDT, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.1 per cent at 5070.8, its highest level since September 2008. The index was up 27 per cent since June amid fading macro-economic risks and improving economic data in China and the US.
After a positive start to the earnings season, shares in Mount Gibson, Transfield, Sonic Healthcare and Monadelphous fell between 5 per cent and 8 per cent after disappointing earnings reports.
Balancing the disappointments were encouraging results from Coca-Cola Amatil, Asciano, Southern Cross Media and Invocare. Shares in those companies rose between 2.2 per cent and 10 per cent.
"Unlike most days recently where we've seen mostly positive reporting, earnings reports been quite a mixed bag today," IG market strategist Stan Shamu said.
Nevertheless, the market appeared to be predicting positive reports from a number of major companies reporting later this week - BHP Billiton, Woodside Petroleum, Toll Holdings, Fortescue Metals, Suncorp, Brambles, Stantos and Crown rose between 0.4 per cent and 1.4 per cent before their reports.
Mr Shamu said that while global markets could become concerned about uncertainty surrounding Italian elections this weekend, the Australian sharemarket was proving resilient.
"Our market is largely ignoring Europe for now because people are looking at the overall region," Mr Shamu said. "Italian politics won't make much difference to sentiment as long as European economic data point to stabilisation."
In minutes of its February 5 policy meeting, the RBA said tame inflation gave policymakers room to ease further. At the meeting, interest rates were left unchanged at 3 per cent.
"Noting that monetary policy was already accommodative as a result of the substantial easing of policy of the past 15 months, and that this stimulus was continuing to work its way through the economy, the board judged that it was prudent to leave the cash rate unchanged at this meeting," the minutes said.
