The Australian share market is heading for a weak opening today after US markets fell 1% on Friday.
Meanwhile, our local market closed stronger on Friday with the S&P/ASX 200 Index up 47 points at 4,859. However the SPI200 is down 28 points.
Checking currencies at 8:20 AM the Aussie Dollar is down against the major currencies and is buying 92 US cents, 84.8 Yen, 61.36 Euro cents and 56.49 Pence Sterling.
On the economic news front: The Australian Bureau of Statistics releases it’s the producer price index for the September quarter. To what’s making company news this morning: ANZ (ASX:ANZ) shares closed higher on Friday, up 1.36% to 23.85. The ANZ Bank has promised not to slug its 800,000 home borrowers with variable interest rate rises above official moves by the Reserve Bank. Chief executive Mike Smith made the pledge to the Herald Sun newspaper, following warnings from Treasurer Wayne Swan that independent rate increases by the major banks couldn’t be justified in the current economic climate. The newspaper says the ANZ is the first of the big banks to confirm it won’t deviate from the RBA rate cycle until it becomes clear that Australia has recovered from the economic downturn. ANZ’s best net profit over the past five years was in 2007 with close to $4.2 billion.
Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) finished slightly higher on Friday, up 1.05% to $67.50. The Australian Financial Review reports that Rio Tinto will need to answer some tough questions from its shareholders over the coming weeks. The miner will have to convince them that Plan B – which is the Pilbara iron ore joint project with BHP Billiton and the alternative to the failed Chinalco alliance – is still good value for shareholders. Investor briefings will begin in London this week and in Sydney next week. Looking at the past five years of net profits, Rio Tinto’s best year was in 2006 with over US$7.4 billion.
To the ex-dividend scoreboard: there are a number of companies going today among them are Austereo with a 5.1 cent fully franked dividend, Beach Petroleum with a 1 cent, 10% franked dividend and Diploma Group with a 1 cent fully franked dividend.
To international markets: Wall Street fell on Friday: The Dow Jones industrial average fell 109 points, the S&P500 Index lost 13 points and the NASDAQ dropped 11 points.
European markets were mixed. London’s FTSE rose 35 points, Paris fell 13 points and Frankfurt lost 23 points.
Asian markets were higher: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 379. Tokyo’s Nikkei added 16 and China’s SSE Composite is up 56.
Looking at metals: Gold is weaker, it’s down $2.20 to US$1056.40 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. Silver rose 18 cents to US$17.72 and copper is up 4 cents to US$3.03.
And the price of oil fell 69 cents to US$80.50 a barrel for December light crude in New York.
