Sharemarket and Market Trading News

US stocks bounced back from early losses and ended nearly flat overnight, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average holding above 11,000 as upbeat news from Apple Computer offset weak earnings from Alcoa.

The Dow blue-chip index, which fell more than 50 points in early trade, was off a fractional 0.88 point at 11,011.02 at the closing bell.

On Monday, the benchmark index closed above 11,000 for the first time since June 2001.

A surge in imports took Australia's trade gap with the rest of the world to $2.5 billion in November. But much of the blame for the ballooning deficit has been placed on a glitch with a new Customs computer program which created a backlog of imports. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Tuesday showed the trade deficit for November grew $1.1 billion to $2.47 billion, the 44th consecutive monthly trade deficit. The value of exports inched up one per cent to $15.12 billion, while imports jumped seven per cent to $17.59 billion.

The Australian dollar opened more than half a US cent stronger on Thursday after its US counterpart succumbed to further selling overnight. At 7am (AEDT), the local unit was trading at US74.77¢, well above Wednesday's close of US74.19¢.

Overnight, it reached a low of US73.98¢ and a high of US74.85¢.

ICAP head of economics and strategy Michael Thomas said the US currency had suffered its largest two-day fall in five years and that the Australian dollar was "just going along for the ride."