The Australian share market is expected to open lower after a late stage sell off saw U.S. markets turn negative and close lower despite some upbeat earnings news.
Metal and oil prices improved overnight which will support our local commodity stocks today.
The local market rallied yesterday with the S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 8 points at 4,839 and the SPI200 is down 33 points.
In currencies: at 8:40 AM the Aussie Dollar was buying 92.69 US cents, 84.38 Yen, 61.77 Euro cents and 55.86 Pence Sterling.
To what’s ahead in company news today, Ten Network will report annual results, Santos announces third quarter output and Austar United Communications reports third quarter results. Perpetual and United Group are among companies holding AGMs today.
To what’s making company news this morning:BHP shares finished yesterday’s session 0.2% lower at $39.83, after reporting a slight increase in first quarter iron ore output. Overnight workers at BHP’s Spence copper mine in Chile said they will resume wage talks to solve a nine day strike at the mine which is affecting production, although BHP has not disclosed by how much output is being affected. Copper prices have surged in recent days after would copper supply was also decreased by BHP declaring force majeure at its Olympic Dam copper mine. A union official in Chile said overnight that a government mediator has convinced both parties to hold talks today. BHP Billiton reported a sharp drop in 2009 net profit after a solid history of net profit growth.
AWB (ASX:AWB) shares lost 2.75% to $1.24 yesterday. AWB’s former chief executive, Andrew Lindberg will face court next week and hear evidence from three former Arthur Andersen consultants about how they tried to alert the grain company in 2001 that some of its senior managers could have been involved in fraud, bribery and corruption in overseas deals. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission is driving in a civil case against Mr Lindberg, claiming he should have stopped $US225 million of payments to Saddam Hussein’s regime in the form of trucking fees because they breached UN sanctions against Iraq. In the last 5 years of results, AWB’s best net profit year was in 2005.
To the companies going ex-dividend today we have: Bentley Capital which is paying a 1 cent fully franked dividend, Redflex Holdings is paying 5 cents fully franked and Trust Company is paying 17.2 cents 100% franked.
To international markets: Wall Street lost ground overnight. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 92 points. The S&P500 Index lost 10 points and the NASDAQ declined 13.
European markets were firmer. London’s FTSE improved 14 points, Paris added just 2 points and Frankfurt gained 22 points.
Asian markets were lower: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 67. Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 3 points and China’s SSE Composite declined 14.
Looking at metals: the price of Gold added $5.90 to US$1,064.50 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. Silver gained 27 cents to US$17.83 and copper improved 10 cents to US$3.04.
And the price of oil is $2.25 higher at US$81.37 a barrel for December light crude in New York.
