Ausbil Dexia, which manages about $11 billion in stocks, wants to hire a third resources analyst as the market value of mining stocks in Australia takes up a bigger proportion of indexes.

John Grace, director of equity at Sydney-based Ausbil Dexia, says he wants a new analyst to cover metals, mining, and oil and gas. There are two resource analysts currently in the seven-member research team.

“We want to broaden and deepen our resources coverage because it is becoming more and more important in equity portfolios in this country,” says Grace.

About a third of the market value of the S&P/ASX 200 Index is accounted for by resource stocks, says Grace. He estimates mining stocks account for about half the value of the market outside the ASX 200.