The Australian share market looks like it may open higher this morning following Wall St’s positive lead overnight on a surprise drop in jobless claims and strong housing report. Stronger oil and metals prices are also likely to give resource and energy stocks a boost today.
Australian stocks closed higher on Wednesday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 37 points higher at 4,722. Looking at the futures market the SPI200’s up 24 points.
At 8:40AM the Aussie Dollar is buying 93.15 US cents, 81.44 Yen, 61.57 Euro cents and 55.77 Pence Sterling.
In economics news out today: The ABS is to release data on private new capital expenditure for the September quarter, and data on managed funds also for the September quarter.
In company news about this morning: Shares in real estate investor Mirvac Group (ASX:MGR) dropped 0.32 per cent to $1.54 yesterday. Shareholders have approved the company’s takeover of Mirvac Real Estate Investment Trust (ASX:MRZ). Mirvac Real Estate Investment Trust investors will receive one Mirvac share for every 2.6 Mirvac Real Estate Investment Trust shares after the first 20,000 units they hold. Mirvac Managing Director Nick Collishaw says the acquisition is in line with its strategy of increasing the company’s Australian recurring investment earnings, with the transaction adding some $1 billion of investment grade assets to the group. Mirvac Group posted a loss of over $1 billion for 2009 following four years of profits.
Shares in regional television broadcaster Prime Media Group Ltd (ASX:PRT) rose 2.08 per cent to $0.735 yesterday. The company says it is starting to see signs of improvement in the advertising market. In an investor presentation Chairman Paul Ramsay told investors that consistent with most market commentary, it is pleasing to note that the company is beginning to see a slow turnaround in the advertising market. Mr Ramsay says Prime Media’s commercial inventory is starting to come under higher demand, and the company is cautiously optimistic that it will begin to see rate increases in the New Year. Prime Media Group fell into the red in fiscal 2009 posting a loss of $44.4 million.
Checking ex-dividends, and going today we have Katana Capital with a 0.5 cent fully franked dividend, and TFS Corp with a 3 cent fully franked dividend.
Turning now to overseas markets. US Stocks closed higher on Wednesday - The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 31 points. The S&P500 Index is 5 points higher and the NASDAQ gained 7 points.
European markets were also higher. London’s FTSE is up 41 points, Paris gained 25 points and Frankfurt added 34.
Asian markets were stronger: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 189 points. Tokyo’s Nikkei rose 40 and the Shanghai Composite gained 67 points.
Looking at metals: Gold advanced $20.60 to US$1,188 an ounce for the February contract on Comex. The precious metal rallied to a fresh high of US$1189 at one point in response to a weaker US dollar and inflation concerns. For the March contract Silver up 31 cents to US$18.80 and copper is 6 cents higher at US$3.20.
And the price of oil is up $1.94 to US$77.96 a barrel for January light crude in New York.
