Midday: Aus shares sink on miner woes

Market Reports


Following a sell-off in Wall St overnight, the Australian share market opened down, led lower by the miners to be 0.83 per cent down at noon. 
 
The S&P/ASX 200 index has shed 48 points to 5,726. On the futures market the SPI is 45 points down 
 
Economic news

The ABS has reported that construction fell 1.8 per cent in the March quarter, the seasonally adjusted figure was down 2.4 per cent. Total building work done rose 2 per cent for the period offset by a 4.7 per cent tumble in engineering work done. 
 
Company news
 
Seek Limited (ASX:SEK) has announced an 18 per cent jump in profit for its Chinese subsidiary Zhaopin Limited. Seek first invested in the Chinese online employment site in 2006 and has since grown its shareholding to around 56 per cent of the company. Seek recently posted a record first half profit increase of 64 per cent and upped its dividend. Shares in Seek are trading 0.92 per cent lower at $16.71. 
 
Orica Limited (ASX:ORI) has elected to make a first prepayment of $7.5 million to Strike Energy Limited (ASX:STX) as part of a Gas Sales Agreement brokered back in 2013. Under the agreement, Orica can make up t0 $52.5 million worth of prepayments to help fast track Strike’s Southern Cooper Basin gas project. The cash injection will allow Strike to progress to Phase 4 of its program. Shares in Orica are trading 0.73 per cent lower at $21.78. 
 
Best and worst performers

All sectors are down in morning trade. The sector with the least losses is financials excluding real estate investment trusts, losing 0.4 per cent to 7,522. Shares in Aveo have risen 2.86 per cent and are trading at $2.88. Shares in QBE and Platinum Asset Management are also stronger. 
 
The worst performing sector is utilities, falling 1.8 per cent to 6,771. Shares in AGL Energy have fallen 3.22 per cent, trading at $15.94. Shares in Ausnet Services and Spark Insfrastructure are also lower. 
 
Gold and the dollar

Gold is trading at $US1,188 an ounce.
The Australian dollar is buying 77.41 US cents. 

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