The Australian share market is expected to lift at the open this morning after Wall Street posted gains on Friday due to better-than-expected jobs data. Over the weekend, finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading economies met in London and reaffirmed the need to maintain economic stimulus measures including low interest rates until a recovery is secured. A number of principles were agreed on and among them a blueprint to raise capital requirements at banks to strengthen the world financial system as the recovery takes hold.
The local market finished stronger on Friday with S&P/ASX 200 Index is up 6 points to 4,436 and on the futures market the SPI200’s up 38 points.
Checking currencies at 8:20 AM the Aussie Dollar jumped overnight and is buying 85.2 US cents, 79.3 Yen, 59.55 Euro cents and 51.94 Pence Stirling.
It’s going to be an interesting week for economic news. Out today ANZ releases its latest job ads survey. Tomorrow the National Australia Bank's monthly business survey for August. Wednesday the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases retail trade figures and housing finance data for July and on Thursday the ABS’s releases labour force data for August.
In company about this morning: Shares of OneSteel (ASS:OST) closed higher on Friday, up 2.88% to $3.21. The Australian Financial Review reports the Australian steel industry is being excluded from about $70 billion in major resource projects as international developers use imported steel from Asia rather than Australia. Don McDonald, Chief Executive of the Australian Steel Institute says an example is Chevron, the operator of the proposed $50 billion Gorgon LNG project which is using Japanese content and operating standards which preclude OneSteel and BlueScope Steel from taking part. OneSteel’s net profit results have been reasonably consistent over the past five years.
Challenger Financial Services (ASX:CGF) closed higher on Friday, up 3.49% to $3.26. Challenger Financial Services shares are expected to fall in today's trading after James Packer dumped his 20% stake in the company. Challenger shares went into a trading halt on Friday, just before UBS sold the shares at $3.25, valuing Mr Packer’s stake at $395 million. It marks the end of the Packer family’s 11 year ties with Challenger and many media commentators believe it signals Mr Packer’s move to focus purely on gaming and pay TV. Looking at net profits, Challenger Financial Services fell back into the red in 2008.
Checking ex-dividends and there are plenty going today, among them are AMP with a 14 cent 50% franked dividend, Gunns a 2 cent fully franked, Macarthur Coal 13 cent fully franked, Primary Health Care 7 cent fully franked and Woolworths with a 56 cent fully franked dividend. To the international scoreboard: Wall Street closed higher on Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 97, the S&P500 Index added 13 points and the NASDAQ rose 36 points.
European markets were also stronger: London’s FTSE rose 55 points, Paris up 45 points and Frankfurt added 83 points.
Asian markets were mixed: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 557 points. Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 28 points and China’s SSE Composite was closed.
Looking at Metals: Gold fell $1 to US$996.70 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. Silver fell 1 cent to US$16.29 and copper is steady at US$2.87.
And finally, oil rose 6 cents to US$68.02 a barrel for October light crude in New York.
