The Australian share market looks like it may open higher this morning after U.S. stocks rallied overnight on a jump in the price of oil. A drop in U.S. crude reserves suggesting that demand may be picking up.
On Wednesday the local share market closed slightly lower with the S&P/ASX 200 Index down 8 points to 4,374 and on the futures market the SPI200’s up 48 points.
Checking currencies at 8:35AM the Aussie Dollar is buying 82.99 US cents, 78.11 Yen, 58.32 Euro cents and 50.2 Pence Stirling.
In economic news: ABS merchandise imports data for July is to be released today, as well as the Reserve Bank of Australia’s monthly bulletin.
Among those companies reporting earnings results today is: AGL Energy, AMP, QBE Insurance, Wesfarmers and Santos.
Making news this morning: Shares in Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX:MQG) gained 2.54 per cent to $45.61 yesterday. The company has acquired U.S. asset management firm, Delaware Investments, from Lincoln Financial Group for US$428 million. Macquarie says upon completion of the transaction, the combined assets under management of Macquarie and Delaware are expected to be over US$300 billion. The transaction will be funded by Macquarie Bank, after which Macquarie Bank’s Tier 1 capital ratio is anticipated to decrease by approximately 1.2 per cent. Macquarie Group’s 2009 profit took a big fall from its previous high in 2008 of over $1.8 billion.
Construction and engineering company Leighton Holdings Ltd (ASX:LEI) rose 4.12 per cent to $37.36 yesterday. The company’s subsidiary, John Holland in joint venture with GHD, has been appointed to deliver the $173 million first stage of Barwon Water’s Capital Works Program Alliance. The company says the total value of the six year program is $355 million. John Holland recently announced that it had been awarded the $90 million Northern Water Plant for Barwon Water in Victoria. Leighton Holdings 2009 net profit was $440 million.
Checking the ex-dividend scoreboard now; and going ex dividend today we have Choiseul Investments with a 10.5 cent fully franked dividend, and Integrated Research with a 2.5 five per cent franked dividend.
To the international scoreboard - US markets rose on Wednesday. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 61 points. The S&P500 Index gained 7 points and the NASDAQ advanced 13 points.
European markets were mixed: London’s FTSE up 4 points, Paris steady and Frankfurt fell 19 points.
Asian markets were lower: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 352 points. Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 81 points and China's SSE Composite fell 125 points.
Looking at Metals: Gold rose $5.60 to US$944.80 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. For the September contract Silver is down 9 cents to US$13.88 and copper is steady at US$2.76.
And finally, oil rallied $3.23 to US$72.42 a barrel for September light crude in New York.
