The Australian share market opened higher in the first 5 minutes of trade, but has since fallen into negative territory and is struggling for direction. Currently, the local bourse is tracking 0.17% lower at noon.
NAB made some strong gains this morning after the bank maintained its dividend, despite its full year profit dropping 94%.
Shares in Blackmore and CSL aren’t doing so well today. Blackmore’s share price fell below the $100 mark briefly, and CSL is close to doing the same.
The sector propping up the share market the most is Financials (excluding REITs), and today’s biggest drag on the market is Healthcare.
The S&P/ASX 200 is down 9 points at 5,351. And on the futures market the SPI is down 6 points.
Economic newsThe ABS has released the latest import and export price data for the September quarter. Australian export prices rose 3.5% in the third quarter of this year, which was higher than what was forecast by economists. As for import prices, they fell 1% slightly more than expected.
Through the year to September, export prices fell 5.4% and import prices dropped 5.1%.
Company newsThe Japan Patent Office has approved an application by Perth-based medical tech company, OBJ Ltd
(ASX:OBJ) – for its magnetic microarray skincare patent. OBJ says the United States Patent Office has also recently granted company the same patent. Currently, Procter & Gamble has exclusive rights to use OBJ’s microarray technology for its skincare products. Shares in OBJ are trading steady at 7.2 cents.
Carnegie Wave Energy Ltd
(ASX:CWE) has acquired an Australian battery and solar engineering company, called Energy Made Clean, for $13 million. The company says this deal will fast track its ability to deliver world-first microgrid project combinations of wave, solar, wind and battery energy storage globally. Shares in Carnegie Wave Energy are trading up 2.56% at 4 cents.
Best and worst performersToday, the best performing sector is Financials (excluding REITs), gaining 0.2 per cent to 6,724. Shares in Challenger are up 5.53 per cent and are trading at $11.07. Shares in QBE and Gemworth Mortgage Insurance are also doing better than most other shares.
The worst performing sector is Healthcare, falling 1.02 per cent to 19,964. Shares in ResMed have fallen by 1.73 per cent, and are trading at $7.94. Shares in Virtus Health and Ramsay Health Care are also lower.
Gold and the dollarGold is trading at $US1,266 an ounce.
The Australian dollar is buying $US0.7652.
