Australian Shares Gain; Regis Healthcare Flags Aged Care Funding Rise as Below Cost Inflation
Australian shares rose on Thursday, tracking gains on Wall Street.The S&P/ASX 200 Index gained 0.46%, or 41.70 points, to close at 9,020.10.Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite each rose 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.6%.Brent crude oil futures continued to trade around $95 per barrel as the US and Iran continued hostilities.On the domestic front, the S&P Global Australia Services PMI Business Activity Index edged down to 53.2 in August from 53.6 in July, but continued to signal a "solid" expansion in business activity.Australia's goods balance recorded a seasonally adjusted surplus of AU$1.92 billion in July, up from AU$2.34 billion in June, according to data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.In company news, Regis Healthcare (ASX:REG) said the Australian Government's 2.55% increase in the Australian National Aged Care Classification starting price to AU$303.19 from AU$295.64 per resident per day from Oct. 1 falls well short of sector cost inflation. Its shares closed down 25%.Santos (ASX:STO) commenced seawater injection at the Nanushuk Drillsite-B of its Pikka oil project on Alaska's North Slope, with injection rates reaching around 40,000 barrels per day following successful milestone testing.Eureka Group Holdings (ASX:EGH) entered into contracts with Ingenia Communities (ASX:INA) to acquire six lifestyle and mixed-use communities in New South Wales comprising 953 sites for AU$123.8 million.
