Australian shares look set for a flat start this morning after Wall St ended three days of gains to close lower overnight on concern for the economic recovery following a surprise drop in housing starts. However higher metals and gold prices may lift the miners today and help to support the market.
The local share market closed higher yesterday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index is up 10 points at 4,739. Looking at the futures market the SPI200’s up 8 points.
Checking currencies at 8:40 AM the Aussie Dollar is buying 92.97 US cents, 83.06 Yen, 62.13 Euro cents and 55.53 Pence Sterling.
Coming up in today’s economic news: The RBA November monthly bulletin is to be released today and the ABS releases average weekly earnings data for the third quarter.
In company news this morning: Shares in mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd (ASX:BHP) gained 0.25 per cent to $40.60 yesterday. The global miner's CEO Marius Kloppers says that Australia will need to seek foreign investment to help build resource projects big enough to keep up with demand from China. According to a report in The Australian Mr Kloppers told an audience at the Lowy Institute in Sydney that capital sources in Australia to fund resources projects are limited due to a mismatch between the risk appetites of some funding sources and the inherent riskiness in the projects themselves. He says if Australia wants to remain lead supplier to Asia then Australia and Australian companies need to be open to more foreign investment. BHP’s 2009 net profit was a far cry from its result the year before.
Shares in Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX:ANZ) rose 1.23 per cent to $22.16. Following strong demand from investors ANZ has doubled its $750 million hybrid capital raising to $1.7 billion. The bank says proceeds from the offer will replace around $1 billion of hybrid redemptions and improve the efficiency of ANZ’s capital structure. ANZ says after receiving strong investor demand it decided to increase the size of the offer to $1.7 billion with the ability to raise more or less. The margin is set at 3.1%. ANZ’s profits have fallen in the last couple of years.
Checking ex-dividends: and going today we have Brickworks with a 26.5 cent fully franked dividend, Felix Resources with a 50 cent fully franked dividend and Incitec Pivot with a 4.6 cent unfranked dividend.
Overseas now and Wall Street finished lower - The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 11 points. The S&P500 Index is down half a point and the NASDAQ fell 11 points.
European markets were mixed. London’s FTSE is down 4 points, Paris fell 1 point and Frankfurt gained 9.
Asian markets were also mixed: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is down 74 points. Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 53 and the Shanghai Composite added 20 points.
Looking at metals: Gold is $1.90 higher at US$1,141.30 an ounce for the December contract on Comex. Silver gained 3 cents to US$18.42 and for the March contract, copper is up 1 cent at US$3.15.
And the price of oil is up 44 cents to US$79.58 a barrel for December light crude in New York.
