The Australian share market has received a positive lead from Wall Street overnight which was buoyed by a number of corporate earnings reports.
The local share market closed stronger yesterday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index added 71 points to 3,996 and on the futures market the SPI200’s is up 36 points.
Checking currencies at 8:35 am the Aussie dollar is buying 80.44 US cents, 75.42 Yen, 56.91 Euro cents and 48.99 British pence.
In economic news coming out today: the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases international trade price indices for June and the Melbourne Institute bulletin of economic trends for July.
In company news: National Australia Bank's (ASX:NAB) shares closed higher yesterday, adding 2.57% to $23.95. The big four banks could be forced pay a combined $1.8 billon in tax after National Bank of Australia lost a landmark legal battle over structured finance deals dating back nearly a decade. The New Zealand High Court ordered NAB’s subsidiary, Bank of New Zealand to pay A$525 million in taxes and accumulated interest on the complex lending agreements. NZ tax authorities have also launched cases against other foreign banks relating to similar transactions, including Westpac which has some $NZ903 million in taxes and interest at stake. ANZ has an exposure of about $NZ405 million and Commonwealth Bank is disputing $NZ280 million in back taxes. Looking at the past five years, National Australia Bank’s profit highlight was in 2007.
The Seven Network (ASX:SEV) closed weaker yesterday, losing 0.87% to $5.67. The battle for control of Consolidated Media Holdings is heating up after the Seven Network's Chairman Kerry Stokes confirmed that his stake in the company has increased to 19.91%. Yesterday Seven said it had spent $29.5 million buying a further 11 million shares to increase its stake. Mr Stoke’s interest in Cons Media also prompted James Packer to raise his holding on Wednesday by 1.04% taking it to 40.77%. 2007 was by far the best net profit result for the Seven Network over the past five years.
Turning to the ex-dividend scoreboard and nothing today but on Monday Euroz is going with a 6.5 cent fully franked dividend.
To international markets: Wall Street finished stronger overnight. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 96 points. The S&P500 Index added 8 points and the NASDAQ rose 22.
European markets were also higher: London’s FTSE rose 15 points. Paris added 28 points and Frankfurt is up 29 points.
Asian markets were mixed: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 103 points. Tokyo’s Nikkei added 75 points and China’s SSE Composite down 5 points.
Looking at Metals: Gold lost US$4 to US$935.40 an ounce, for the August contract on Comex. For the September contract Silver rose 3 cents to US$13.24 and copper is steady at US$2.39.
And finally the price of oil rose 48 cents to US$62.02 a barrel for August light crude in New York.
