The local share market may open slightly lower this morning after stocks on Wall St closed the session flat overnight as investors took stock following four days of gains.
The local share market closed higher on Monday with the S&P/ASX 200 Index gained 136 points to 4,426 and on the futures market the SPI200’s down 22 points.
Checking currencies at 8:40AM the Aussie Dollar is buying 83.69 US cents, 79.06 Yen, 58.54 Euro cents and 50.98 Pence Stirling.
Among those companies reporting earnings results today we have; Aristocrat Leisure, Mirvac, Oil Search, Suncorp-Metway, Foster’s Group and Seek.
In company about this morning: Shares in iron ore company BC Iron Ltd (ASX:BCI) gained 9.32 per cent to $1.055 yesterday. The company says it has finalised its Nullagine Joint Venture in the Pilbara with Fortescue Metals Group ahead of schedule. In June BC Iron announced the joint venture to develop the Nullagine Project with Fortescue given the opportunity acquire up to a 50 per cent interest in the project by providing BC Iron with rail haulage, port handling and ship loading facilities. BC Iron managing director Mike Young says the two companies originally intended to formalise the Nullagine joint venture following completion of the test pit, but in discussions with Fortescue, both parties have agreed that forming the joint venture now is in the best interests of fast tracking the project to production. A delegation of senior BC Iron personnel recently went to China to ascertain interest in the project with Mr Young saying that Chinese steel mills are impressed with the quality of the ore and the company is now in talks with these mills regarding long term sales contracts. BC Iron has posted net losses in the last two years.
Shares in cinema, theme park and film producer Village Roadshow Ltd (ASX:VRL) fell 11.76 per cent to $1.20 yesterday. The company says plans to privatise it have fallen apart. In a statement to the ASX, Village says major shareholder Village Roadshow Corporation, has told Village that it does not intend to make a privatisation proposal for various reasons including its inability to arrange finance on terms in deems acceptable. The board of Village says it will now consider alternative capital management strategies in due course. Village Roadshow posted a net profit of $256.8 million in 2008.
Checking ex-dividends and among those companies going ex dividend today we have Ausenco with a 5 cent fully franked dividend, Ansell with a 16 cent unfranked dividend, Origin Energy with a 25 cent fully franked dividend, Platinum Asset Management with a 12 cent fully franked dividend and Wesfarmers with a 60 cent fully franked dividend.
To the international scoreboard: US markets ended flat on Monday. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 3 points. The S&P500 Index fell half a point and the NASDAQ dropped 3 points.
European markets were higher: London’s FTSE added 45 points, Paris is up 36 points and Frankfurt rose 57 points.
Asian markets were also stronger: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng up 337 points. Tokyo’s Nikkei advanced 343 points and China’s SSE Composite gained 33 points.
Looking at Metals: Gold dropped $11 to US$943.70 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. Silver is up 3 cents to US$14.23 and copper rose 4 cents to US$2.93 also for the December contract.
And finally, oil is up 48 cents to US$74.37 a barrel for October light crude in New York.
