Australian shares opened in the negative but hovered around yesterday’s levels for most of the session before closing mildly lower. Almost all sectors were in the red but property and energy stocks were the worst performers.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 14 points lower at 4,664 while on the futures market, the SPI200’s down 7.
In company news around this afternoon: Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) announced it was selling its Alcan Composites business, which makes aluminium construction material used in wind farms for $US349 million. The sale is part of Rio’s debt reduction plan and comes a week after the sale of a 56 per cent stake of Alcan Engineered Production Cable business to Platinum Equity for an unnamed sum. Rio Tinto shares lost 0.54% to $60.36 today.
Internet service provider iiNet (ASX:IIN) said today that it is looking for acquisitions as part of its strategy to rapidly increase the size of the company. Managing director Michael Malone said in the company's 2009 annual report that the company wanted to grow its market share of fixed broadband customers in Australia from eight per cent to around 15 per cent as quickly as possible. iiNet shares finished the session 0.95% higher at $2.12.
Also making news: Wesfarmers (ASX:WES) managing director and chief executive Richard Goyder made comments at the Australian Institute of Company Directors event today and said he is confident Australia is through the worst of the global economic downturn.
Shares in QBE Insurance (ASX:QBE) gained after Citi raised its rating on the stock to ‘buy’ saying the short-term challenges of lower interest rates and a rising Aussie dollar would pass.
Some of the stories covered in our earlier reports: Premier Investments Ltd (ASX:PMV) has almost doubled its earnings for the year after today reporting a 98 per cent rise in net profit for the year to July 25 of $82.7 million.
Singapore based telco Singapore Telecommunications (ASX:SGT) says it expects to see single-digit revenue growth in Singapore and low single digit revenue growth for its Australian arm Optus in 2010.
In the best and worst performers: The best performing sector at close was the Financials excluding the Real Estate Investment Trust index, up just 5 points to 5,460 while the worst performing by percentage points was the Real Estate Investment Trust index; which lost 15 points to 924.
The best performing stock in the S&P/ ASX200 was Linc Energy and shares jumped 8.67 per cent to $1.88. Shares in Minara Resources and Lynas Corp also gained.
The worst performing stock was ConnectEast and shares fell 6.67 per cent to $0.35. Shares in Macquarie Countrywide and Goodman Group also lost ground.
In commodities, gold is trading at $1,007.50 U.S an ounce and since this morning light crude is up 26 cents at $69.97 U.S a barrel.
