S&P/ASX 200 breaks through 6000 barrier on the back of overnight gains for US stocks

S&P/ASX 200 (INDEXASX:XJO) has surged 1.49% to 6022 at 2.19 pm after Wall Street provided a solid platform with two of the three major indices rising overnight amid COVID-19 vaccine hopes and better than expected manufacturing data. The Dow fell 77.91 points, or 0.30%, to close at 25,734.97 but the S&P 500 advanced 0.50% to 3,115.86 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.95% to end the day at 10,164.63. On the ASX today, buying has been rather widespread with investors most enthusiastic with the IT, consumer discretionary and financials. $8 billion trade surplus Australia’s trade surplus for May came in at $8.025 billion, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. That was below expectations of a trade surplus of $9 billion in a Reuters poll. COVID-19 update Victoria recorded 77 new COVID-19 cases and a Sydney Woolworths (ASX:WOW) store employee tested positive, forcing 50 staff to self-isolate. The US reported more than 48,400 new cases on Wednesday, the fifth single-day case record in eight days. North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas hit daily records, with Texas reaching more than 8,000 new COVID-19 cases. Globally, more than 10 million people have been infected by COVID-19 and at least 511,000 lives have been taken, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. A top World Health Organization official warned Wednesday that certain countries may need to bring back lockdowns. Top gainers Today’s top gainers on the ASX include Australian Potash Ltd (ASX:APC) (+10.71%), Polarx Ltd (ASX:PXX) (+16.67%), Suda Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX:SUD) (+13.51%), Pharmaxis Ltd (ASX:PXS) (+11.59%), Archtis Ltd (ASX:AR9) (+32.26%) and Hexagon Energy Materials Ltd (ASX:HXG) (+16.28%). Proactive news headlines: Aeris Resources beats fiscal 2020 copper production guidance; adds gold for 2021 Aeris Resources Ltd (ASX:AIS) has achieved copper production of 25,041 tonnes at the Tritton Copper Operations for financial year 2019-20 (FY2020), about 2% above the upper limit of the previously announced guidance of 23,500 to 24,500 tonnes. Along with Tritton, Aeris recently acquired ownership of the Cracow Gold Operations in Queensland. Australian Potash JV partner St Barbara commits to extensive FY21 gold program at Lake Wells project Australian Potash Ltd (ASX:APC) has received a boost in a strong gold market with joint venture partner St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) committing to extensive 2021 financial year exploration plans at Lake Wells Gold Project in WA, including up to 30,000 metres of drilling. The extensive regional scale drilling program will comprise up to 425 aircore (AC) holes for about 25,500 metres, up to 19 reverse circulation (RC) holes for about 3,400 metres and up to three diamond holes for around 900 metres. Australian Strategic Materials Korean JV produces titanium metal alloy with 45% power saving Australian Strategic Materials Limited’s (ASM) Korean R&D partner ZironTech has produced a titanium metal alloy at the JV’s commercial pilot plant and through use of the patented reduction process achieved 45% power saving. This is the first phase of the development of a low emission, high purity metal refining technology that can be applied to zirconium, titanium, rare earths for permanent magnet alloys. Element 25 identifies potential high-grade manganese concentrate zone at Butcherbird Project Element 25 Ltd (ASX:E25) sub-sampling of the diamond core drilled into the Coodamudgi resource at Butcherbird Manganese Project has returned high-grade manganese values of up to 42.3% from surface with low impurity levels. The Coodamudgi resource is entirely within granted mining lease M52/1074 meaning that it can be quickly integrated into the mine plan once resource drilling is completed and metallurgy is confirmed.