Sydney, Sept 28, 2007 (ABN Newswire) - The share market managed to maintain the strong momentum we've seen throughout the week, finishing at another record high. Mining and energy firms led the market higher on the back of strong metal and oil prices while funds management firms climbed on strong inflows.

Today the S&P/ASX 200 Index closed up 30 points to 6568, and is up 210 points on the week. On the futures market the SPI 200 rose 29 points.

Looking to US indices now, the Dow Jones industrial Index climbed 93 points over the four day trading week. The S&P 500 lifted 6 points, the NASDAQ gained 38, and the 100 index managed 47 points.

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Turning to company news now, Rio Tinto says the iron ore market remains tight. The comment came on the eve of price negotiations with steel mills for the commodity set to begin next month. Chief executive Tom Albanese says as they look at the total picture for seaborne iron ore business, they can see opportunities to expand largely on the back of the strength in the Asian steel sector. Analysts are tipping a price rise of up to 30 per cent as global demand continues to outpace supply. Shares in Rio Tinto ended the session 0.72% higher at $108.22, gaining 4.85% on the week.

And St George has extended its lead in the customer satisfaction rankings. Consultancy group East and Partners conducts the survey and says St George came out well ahead of the pack in August with a score of 59.8. The Bank of Queensland came in second with a score of 55.8, while HSBC wasn't far behind with a score of 53.9. The survey is completed by 500 Australian businesses who rate the banks on the basis of empathy, satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. Shares in St George Bank ended the session 1.35% higher at $35.39, and gained 4.7 per cent on the week.

Taking a look at some of the week's main stories now, BHP Billiton upgraded the size of its total ore resource at the giant Australian Olympic Dam mine by 75 percent to 7.7 billion tonnes. According to AMP chief economist Dr Shane Oliver, that in itself added impetus to Australian shares this week. BHP also said it's looking to double the size of its railway in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It's all part of a 22.85 billion dollar expansion of the division. The world's largest miner produced around 92 million tonnes of iron ore from its operations in the Pilbara in fiscal 2007. Shares in BHP Billiton ended the session 2.37% higher at $44.55, and are up 8.66% on the week.

And the Seven Network announced it will buy wireless broadband carrier Unwired Group. The $127 million deal is part of the network's planned expansion into digital media. Seven says the deal will help it deliver its programmers through new technologies. The broadcaster says it will bid 45 cents a share in cash for Unwired, and would increase that to 50 cents a share if it acquired at least 90 per cent of the firm. Seven is Australia's top-rating commercial television station. Shares in the Seven Network ended the session 1.13% lower to close at $13.10, but are up 4.8% on the week.

And now to today's best and worst performers, the best performing index was the Energy index gaining 160 points to 15,683, while the worst performing index was the Consumer Staples index shedding 10 points to 8312.

Energy Resources was the best performer in the S&P/ASX top 200 today adding 8.89% to $20.09; Austar United and Babcock and Brown Wind Partners Group also made solid gains.

At the other end of the index; Aquarius Platinum was the worst performing stock losing 6% to $41.55; AWB and Iluka Resources also finished lower.

The Aussie dollar is currently fetching 88.2 U.S cents and is up more than cent on the week. Gold is trading at $737.60 U.S an ounce and gained $6.80 on the week's trading. And finally, oil moved 26 cents firmer to $83.14 U.S a barrel and is up $1.84 on the week.

Source: Finance News Network © 2007 http://www.finnewsnetwork.com.au

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