The Australian share market is likely to open lower today after US stocks slumped on a surprise drop in home sales, and a fall in commodity prices overnight.
Yesterday, the local share market closed lower. The S&P/ASX 200 Index finished 33 points lower at 4,701 and on the futures market the SPI200’s down 50 points.
Checking currencies at 8:35AM the Aussie Dollar lost ground against the US overnight and is buying 86.5 US cents, 78.99 Yen, 59 Euro cents and 53.89 Pence Sterling. In company news this morning ANZ (ASX:ANZ) shares closed lower yesterday, slipping 0.38% to $23.49. ANZ tellers and administrative staff have won a sector-leading pay rise of 3.5% over the next 12 months. According to the Herald Sun, the salary increase, which will take effect immediately, is more than double the annual rises at many other financial institutions and contrasts with the 1.5% increase at CBA to its staff from July 1. The net profit highlight for ANZ came in 2007 with close to $4.2 billion.
Macquarie Group (ASX:MQG) closed lower yesterday, down 1.3% to $56.88. Macquarie Capital Advisors has named its Asia head Andrew Low as chief operating officer and is moving him from Hong Kong to Sydney. Macquarie Group Australia's largest investment bank, has been expanding across Asia, with Low playing a significant part in that growth. Macquarie Capital includes the bank's equity capital markets, advisory business and specialist funds business. Macquarie Group’s 2009 net profit of $904 million was about half of the result achieved in 2008.
Checking ex-dividends and among those companies going today include Ammtec with a 10 cent fully franked dividend, Garratts a 2 cent unfranked dividend, Lycopodium a 20 cent fully franked and the MAC Services a 4.25 cent fully franked dividend.
To the international scoreboard: US markets finished lower overnight for the second session in a row. The Dow Jones industrial lost 41 points. The S&P500 Index dropped 10 points and the NASDAQ fell 24 points.
European markets were lower: London’s FTSE fell 60 points, Paris lost 63 points and Frankfurt dropped 97 points.
Asian markets were mixed: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sank 545 points. Tokyo’s Nikkei rose 174 and China’s SSE Composite added 11 points.
Looking at Metals: Gold fell $15.50 to US$998.90 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. Silver dropped 62 cents to US$16.30 and copper fell 10 cents to US$2.71.
And finally, oil lost $3.08 to US$65.89 a barrel for November light crude in New York.
