Nippon Paper Group Inc.

The Australian market rebounded to above 5000 points today after Wall Street gained on hope of upbeat US corporate earnings. On Wednesday, investors would look to consumer sentiment data from Wespac and Melbourne Institute. The local market fell back to below the 5000 points level on a weaker performance in Asian markets. Today Asian shares were mostly higher following the positive lead from Wall Street.

Australian paper merchant and manufacturer PaperlinX Ltd (ASX:PPX) said today that it is in the final stage of exit from its Tasmanian manufacturing operations.
It will close its Burnie Mill in Tasmania, with the balance of operations already closed. On completion of the closure, PaperlinX will solely become a merchant with business distributing paper, sign and display, graphics solutions and industrial packaging to a wide range of customers in Australia, New Zealand and Asia, Europe and North America.

The Australian shares were broadly higher. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 rose 76.4 points, or 2 per cent, at 3894.4, while the broader All Ordinaries gained 74.6 points, or 1.96 per cent, to 3887.9 points. Besides the strong lead from Wall Street, the rising commodities prices may also push up the market today.

Yesterday the Australian shares fell 1.2 per cent after the weak lead from Wall Street last week. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 dropped 42.2 points, or 1.2%, at 3,516.9, while the broader All Ordinaries index was down 35.4 points, or 1%, to 3461.3. Lacking lead from the US, the market attention will be on recent Chinese and Japanese takeover bids for the Australian companies and a string of corporate results.

Asian major indexes were higher Friday after a late-day recovery in the U.S. market. Japan's Nikkei 225 closed up 0.96%, while Korea's Kospi ended 0.5% higher. Shanghai Composite surged 3% to over 2300 points, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 2.47% and Taiwan's main index up 2.1%.