The local share market is likely to open slightly lower this morning following a mixed session on Wall St overnight and falls on European markets after a disappointing U.S. consumer confidence report and falls in commodity prices.
On Tuesday, the Australian share market closed higher. The S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 30 points to 4,170 and on the futures market the SPI200’s down 21 points.
Checking currencies at 8:30am the Aussie dollar is buying 82.6 US cents, 78.04 Yen, 58.28 Euro cents and 50.29 British Pence.
In economic news: The Housing Industry Association’s new home sales data for June is to be released today.
In company news: Agricultural company ABB Grain Ltd (ASX:ABB) shares fell 0.34 per cent to $8.85 yesterday. The company has announced that CEO Michael Iwaniw will retire at the end of the month. The company, which recently agreed to a takeover offer from Viterra, a Canadian agribusiness company, says it has been negotiating an extension of Mr Iwaniw’s contract due to expire on July 1 pending the approval of the proposed scheme of arrangement between ABB and Viterra. Mr Iwaniw says with the scheme book close to completion, it is an appropriate time to move on. ABB Grain posted a profit of $48.8 million in 2008.
Shares in gold miner Dioro Exploration NL (ASX:DIO) are in a trading halt and last traded at 71 cents and resource company Avoca Resources Ltd (ASX:AVO) shares closed steady at $1.72 yesterday. Reuters says that Dioro is to accept Avoca Resources amended takeover offer after talks with Canada’s Northgate Minerals Corp ended. Avoca’s amended offer is for one Avoca share for every 2.4 Dioro shares. Just yesterday Avoca revealed that it has increased its shareholding in Dioro to 21.61 per cent. Dioro Exploration has posted net losses in the last three years, and Avoca Resources has not posted a net profit in the last five years.
Checking the ex-dividend scoreboard and there are no companies going today however coming up later in the week Singapore Telecommunications is going ex dividend on Friday.
To international markets: US markets finished mixed on Tuesday. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 12 points. The S&P500 Index lost 3 and the NASDAQ gained 8 points.
European markets were weaker: London’s FTSE down 57 points, Paris lost 41 points and Frankfurt dropped 77 points.
Asian markets were mixed: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 373 points. Tokyo’s Nikkei fell 1 points and China’s SSE Composite up 3 points.
Looking at Metals: Gold declined $14.60 to US$941.70 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. For the September contract Silver slipped 25 cents to US$13.74 and copper dropped 2 cents at US$2.52.
And finally, oil fell $1.15 to US$67.23 a barrel for September light crude in New York.
