Following a mixed lead from Wall St overnight, the Australian share market may open flat or slightly lower this morning. Weaker oil and gold prices are likely to weigh down energy stocks and gold miners today. Focus will be on the Reserve Bank and its decision on interest rates expected at 2:30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.
On Monday the local share market closed lower with the S&P/ASX 200 Index losing 45 points to 3,784 and on the futures market the SPI200’s down 1 point.
Checking currencies at 8:40am the Aussie dollar is buying 79.63 US cents. On the cross rates the dollar is trading at 75.81 Yen, 57.02 Euro cents and 48.95 British pence.
In economic news due out today: The Australian Industry Group/Housing Industry Association Australian Performance of Construction index for June is to be released as well as the Manpower/Melbourne Institute employment report for July and the Dun & Bradstreet final business expectations survey for the September quarter.
In company news: Shares in mineral exploration company Cape Lambert Iron Ore Ltd (ASX:CFE) closed steady at 34.5 cents yesterday. The company has made an off-market all script takeover bid for ASX listed resources company Corvette Resources. On June 29 the company completed the acquisition of the assets of listed resource company CopperCo which included a 19.99 per cent stake in Corvette. Cape Lambert says it believes that Corvette shareholders will achieve greater value for their holding if combined with the significant technical and corporate expertise within Cape Lambert. Cape Lambert posted a profit in 2008 after losses the four years previous.
Shares in electrical communications company Norfolk Group Ltd (ASX:NFK) rose 0.9 per cent yesterday to 56 cents. The company’s subsidiary O’Donnell Griffin has secured a $19.4 million tender for the delivery of electrical services at the Multi-user Terminal of Canberra Airport in the ACT. The contract which will commence immediately is with Construction Control. O’Donnell Griffin’s ACT business has worked with Construction Control on past projects at Canberra Airport and is currently in the final stages of delivering $1.2 million of electrical services at the Canberra Airport car park. Norfolk Group’s 2009 net profit took a massive tumble from its result in 2008.
Turning to the ex-dividend scoreboard: and there is just one company going ex-dividend today and that is Clime Capital with a 1 cent fully franked dividend.
To international markets and Wall Street closed mixed on Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 44 points. The S&P500 Index gained 2 points and the NASDAQ closed 9 points weaker.
European markets closed weaker: London’s FTSE down 41 points, Paris lost 37 points and Frankfurt fell 56 points.
Asian markets were mixed: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 224 points. Tokyo’s Nikkei shed 135 and China’s SSE Composite rose 36 points.
Looking at Metals: Gold is down US$6.70 to US$924.30 an ounce for the August contract on Comex. For the September contract Silver is down 17 cents to US$13.24 and copper lost 4 cents to US$2.26.
And finally oil fell US$2.68 to US$64.05 a barrel for August light crude in New York.
