The Australian market trended down throughout the morning then rebounded, offsetting most of the morning’s losses. The All Ordinaries finished Thursday trading 13 points lower.

The S&P/ASX 200 closed 13 points down. Gains in the Health Care, Info Tech, Consumer Staples, Utilities and Telco sectors were offset by losses from the Industrial, Financial, Material, Energy and Consumer Discretionary sectors. Major miners BHP Billiton (-$0.46), Rio Tinto (-$0.82) fell. Lihir Gold (-$0.10) and Sims Metal (-$1.71) helped drag the Material sector down. Wesfarmers (+$0.95) and Coca-Cola (+$0.43) had strong days. The banks saw modest moves with Commonwealth Bank (-$0.18), Westpac (-$0.04), ANZ (-$0.02) down and National Australia Bank (+$0.04) slightly up. Qantas (-$0.24) fell heavily after reporting its 1H10 profit result.

Companies reporting financial results on Thursday included: Wesfarmers; AMP (-$0.11); Santos (-$0.14); Lihir Gold; ASX (+$1.07); Qantas; WorleyParsons (+$0.15); Sims Metal; Intoll (-$0.03); Macquarie Office (no change); Macquarie DDR (no change); Adelaide Brighton (-$0.11); Challenger Infrastructure (+$0.05); Invocare (+$0.11); PMP (+$0.025); and Austereo (+$0.04). Wesfarmers reported flat 1H10 revenue ($26.5B) and NPAT ($0.88B) on pcp. Group EBIT slumped 11% on pcp to $1.55B as Resources earnings evaporated, primarily due to contract coal prices sharply lower compared to pcp. On a brighter note, Retail earnings jumped 23% on pcp aided by a better Coles result, a strong performance from Office works and an impressive uplift in Target. Energy, and Chemicals and Fertilisers improved. Insurance, and Industrial and Safety were lower. A 1H10 dividend of 55 cps ff was declared.